Born Ready
by Nancy T
Summary: Dean will do anything to save Sam from the demon that possessed him - leave his normal life, steal for a living, even do a hit for mobster Castiel De Santis.
1. Chapter 1

_[Once upon a time, a fan video artist called Destiel Heaven did a fan video called "Dean & Castiel Shooter," in which Dean is a hitman hired to kill mobster Castiel. This inspired one of the very best Destiel fanvid creators, SPNHoffen, to create "Born Ready – Destiel Mafia AU," set to Zayde Wolf's song "Born Ready," in which mobster Castiel hires Dean to take out, oh, a lot of folks. Both of them are good fanvids, but SPNHoffen's is richly plotted and, with a cliffhanger ending, pleads for a fic. I've taken quite a few liberties, but have stuck fairly close – fairly close – to SPNHoffen's story line.]_

 _["Supernatural" is copyrighted by Warner Brothers Entertainment Inc.]_

.

Dean was in the bathroom when Sam let himself into Dean's apartment. That was unusual – Sam was usually polite enough to wait for his brother to open the door. "Hey Dean! Where are you?"

"In here. Out in a moment. You want to go out someplace or just hang here and watch the game?"

"I thought you needed my professional expertise."

Dean flushed the toilet and started washing his hands. "Yeah, the damn computer crashed again."

"I keep telling you to look at the requirements before you download a game."

Dean made a face like an annoying schoolmarm in the mirror, but just said, "Yeah, I know. Hey, Sarah!"

"Sarah's not with me. They called her in to work. But you want to ask Rick over?"

Dean hung up the towel. "Rick and me – kinda didn't work out."

"Again? That's pathetic, Dean. Did you ever think about just killing yourself?"

Dean would always remember the reflected expression on his face – frozen disbelief and bafflement. He opened the bathroom door. "You didn't just – "

Sam was standing at the door with a gaping-lipped grin, clutching a carving knife pointed at Dean. His eyes were black from rim to rim. He giggled, said, "Sam really doesn't want me to do this," and lunged.

Dean leaped backward, trapped in the small room. The knife gouged a hole in the wall. Sam changed his aim and gave Dean, back to the wall, the same bizarre grin.

"Sam!" Dean didn't even realize he was screaming it. "Sam!"

Sam lunged again. Dean kicked him, throwing up his arms desperately. The kick caught Sam in the knee and he stumbled, slashing Dean's arm as he half-collapsed.

Dean grabbed Sam's wrist with both of his own hands, trying to force the knife into the bathroom sink, but Sam was stronger than Dean had ever known him to be. He grabbed Dean's arm and Dean slammed Sam's wrist down over and over, banging the blade against the porcelain, smashing both of their arms against the edge of the sink. "God! Sam! Stop it! Stop!"

Sam broke his left hand free and slammed it upward into Dean's nose. Pain blinded Dean, and he staggered back into the wall.

When he could focus, Sam's eyes were normal, his expression agonized. "Dean," he whispered. "I have control. For a moment. Run."

Dean shook his head. "Sam, what – "

"Run!" Sam screamed, and turned the knife, pointing it at himself. "If you stay I'll have to kill myself to keep it from killing you! Go! Go!"

Dean ran, crashing into Sam as he did. He didn't remember going through the apartment or crossing the parking lot. He remembered clawing his emergency key out from the wheel well of the Impala, and only then realizing that his left arm was covered in blood.

His first thought was to get to Sam's place, see what kind of drugs or weird experimental gas was there. He tried not to dwell on his real reason for going there: to find out if Sam's girlfriend was bleeding out on the carpet and, if so, could he save her.

He pulled up into Sam's driveway. He fumbled at the door latch, which was slick. He lurched out of the car, ignoring the sudden cold dizziness that filled his head, and moved toward the front door.

A man appeared in front of him and threw water in his face, another attack. Dean grabbed the man by the edges of his flannel shirt, defending himself, but found himself clutching for support, his knees giving way.

The man grabbed his arms, holding him up. "You're hurt bad. Did you see the Winchester boy?"

"My brother," Dean gasped. "Wha'd you do to my, to my brother?"

"We gotta get you inside, stop this bleeding."

The man half-dragged Dean onto the front porch. There was a thick welcome mat at the front door; the man picked it up and held it under Dean's arm as he opened the door. Dean noticed the door was unlocked, but it was the least important thing he could think of.

The man let him down to the floor gently with the welcome mat under his arm. "Don't get blood on the rug," he said, and left. By the time Dean was wondering why it mattered, the man was back, coming out of Sam's bathroom with towels. He began binding them firmly around Dean's arm. "Keep your head down," he said in a voice that was somehow both gruff and gentle. "Don't try to get up. Doesn't help anything if you stand up and pass out. Did the Winchester boy do this to you?"

"Stop calling'm that. My brother Sam."

"OK. Don't get riled. Did Sam do this to you?"

Even in Dean's dazed state, he felt a jolt of caution. "Who are you?"

"I'm here to help Sam."

Dean's mind cleared enough to focus on the bearded, burly guy binding his arm. Besides the flannel shirt, the guy was wearing hunting boots, jeans, and a trucker cap. "You a doctor?" Dean asked dubiously.

"I'm a guy who helps people like Sam."

"What's wrong with him? What happened?"

"What'd he do?" The man indicated Dean's arm. "Besides that."

Dean looked at his arm, then rolled his head back the other way on the carpet. He wasn't especially squeamish, but the towels around his arm, the welcome mat, and his shirt were all splattered with crimson. "He stabbed – he said – " He tried to pull himself together. "I opened the bathroom door and he was holding a knife. He had a weird expression – and his eyes were black. I don't mean the, the irises were black, I mean – "

"I know. Completely black."

"Yeah. He said, 'Sam really doesn't want me to do this," and he tried to stab me. I fought him off and we were – and then he stopped. He was pointing the knife at himself and his eyes were back to normal. He said something about having control and I should leave. I tried to – but he said – what was it – "

Dean was trying to prop himself up on his elbows. The guy pushed back on his shoulders. "Keep your head down, son. What did he say when his eyes were normal?"

"Something like, I have control, but if you're here I'll have to kill myself to keep it from killing you. He screamed at me to run. He was pointing the knife at himself. Oh, God. He's probably – he probably – "

"Maybe not. He may have saved both your lives. You did the right thing gettin' outta there. Where was this, your house?"

"My apartment. What the – " There wasn't a curse word strong enough. "What's going on?"

The older man pulled himself up off the floor and sat on Sam's sofa. He shook his head. "You always want some time, get people used to the idea, but there's never any time." He ran his hand over his beard. "Here's the bottom line: Demons exist. And one of 'em has possessed your brother."

Dean lay silent for a moment. "I'd say that was bull. Except it explains – Sam isn't insane. He's never had any problems like that. And the eyes." Now he did swear, violently. "What are we going to do?"

"You're gonna tell me where your place is, then I'm gonna drop you off at an ER while I try to find Sam."

"No. Wrong." This time Dean made it up to his elbows. "I'm going with you. What do we need to do to get that thing out of him?"

"An exorcism. It's tricky and dangerous and not for amateurs."

"Look – What's your name?"

"Bobby. Singer."

"Look, Bobby. This is non-negotiable." Dean sat up. "I know where my place is and apparently you don't. The only way you're getting there is if you take me along with you and I give you directions as we go."

"Son, you don't understand what you're dealing with. You could end up – "

"So tell me in the car. Sam's my only family. I ran out on him a few minutes ago, I'm not running out on him again. I'm not going to let – " He jerked his head around, ignoring the sense of things swirling behind his eyes. "Where's Sarah?"

"She's at work." Bobby grimaced. "Only thing I did right today. I called her up and told her they needed a manager at the San Marcos store, double-time. I can be pretty convincing. She wasn't happy about it, but she went. I figured even if she got there, realized it was a hoax, turned around and came back, that gave me an hour. And then it – Sam – left before I could attack. I followed him to a restaurant, but it gave me the slip there. All I could do was lie in wait for it here."

"Maybe it's lying in wait for me back at my place." Dean stood, adrenaline combating the sinking feeling. "Let's go."

"Son – "

But Dean was on his way out the door. "Where's your car?"

"Pickup parked around the corner." Bobby picked up the bloody welcome mat, looked around the living room for other signs of disturbance, and followed Dean out the door. He walked fast, passing Dean as if trying to prove to him that Dean wasn't in shape to deal with this, and Dean, setting his jaw, caught up.

Bobby insisted on pulling gauze and tape out of a first-aid kit, throwing the bloody towels and welcome mat onto the floor of the pickup and binding Dean's arm as they stood by the truck. Just as he finished, his cell phone rang.

"Ignore it," Dean pleaded.

"Hunters don't ignore the phone. Get in the truck. – Yeah?"

Dean remained, glaring at Bobby as the man listened, shaking his head and eventually swearing. "I'm so sorry. I know – No, don't blame yourself, blame the evil thing that did it. Look, I'm trackin' a demon about four hours away. I want you to go low-profile. Defensive measures only. Yeah – Look, I understand. I do. But it doesn't help the civilians when you get yourselves killed. I'll be there as soon as I can, we'll get the sons o' bitches. Lay low. I mean it." He disconnected, and Dean headed for the passenger door.

"Left up here, then the first right after that and go about two miles," Dean said. "So – there's hunters and civilians. Is that demon hunters?"

"You're a good listener. Yeah, demon hunters. Among other things." Bobby shook his head. "Three newbies stumbled across a nest of vamps – vampires – in Laredo. I'm the nearest experienced hunter, and I told 'em to wait for me, but civilians were getting killed, and they felt like they had to move. And now one of 'em is dead. Crap. She was good, too. She'd 'a' been a first-rate hunter, if she hadn't been over-eager."

"Vampires – exist, too."

"All kindsa things." Bobby glanced over at him. "You're takin' it well. We keep it quiet because if anyone speaks up, every nightcrawler in the area goes underground and the hunter gets locked up as a crazy person. And the people who believe you freak out and start attacking anyone who looks at 'em funny. Only time we tell anyone is – "

"When it's been proved to 'em. Like their brother's eyes – " Dean's voice choked off. He cleared his throat. "What do we do when we get there?"

They discussed it, but it was irrelevant. Sam's car, and the demon possessing Sam, were gone by the time they got there.

By the next afternoon, Sunday, Sarah had called Dean's phone three times, asking if he knew where Sam was. There was no answer, and she left messages. On Monday afternoon, Sarah filed a missing persons report.

On that same afternoon, in a different Austin suburb, the home-security company where Dean worked called police to report that some of their inventory was missing and that one of their employees hadn't come in to work. When the police searched Dean's place, there was no blood in the bathroom and a towel hook had been put over the gouge in the wall made by the knife. Dean's bank account had been cleaned out and his car was gone, yet there was so little of his personal property missing that the apartment essentially looked like it always had.

But Sam and Dean Winchester had apparently vanished off the face of the Earth.

.

The police didn't know what it meant. Los Angeles _Times_ reporters had been investigating the situation, but couldn't write stories about the anomalies they were seeing without seeming libelous. And if you're going to be in danger because you wrote a story about the mob, you'd at least like to have written a story with more meat to it than, "Weird stuff, we have no idea what it means, anyone want to let us know?"

The traditional mob was overwhelmingly white and male, of course, although there'd been a couple of variations in the cast of characters even before a year ago. But about a year previously, all of a sudden it was like the Mafia in Los Angeles had adopted a vigorous Affirmative Action plan. While their capo remained a white middle-aged businessman, operating a legitimate business out of a downtown skyscraper, all of a sudden a couple of his closest advisers were a black man and a blonde woman, attending conferences with the capo in highly secured boardrooms. It was unheard of.

The Hispanic man who had acted as consigliere to the Italian-American capo disappeared one night after leaving a restaurant. A white male who'd been associated with the mob on a lower level for several years became the new consigliere, settling into an elegant Bel Air mansion with a large staff. The new consigliere's closest aide – a white woman with long dark hair and intelligent eyes – had been seen twice in restaurants, seriously conversing with both capo and consigliere. They had some origin on her; she'd previously been a hostess at one of those restaurants. Now she was highly placed in the mob.

Equal Opportunity Employment in the Mafia hadn't been the only baffler in the last year. There was almost no fight for territory, suddenly. Gangs of other ethnicities began expanding their territories and fought with each other, but with no pushback from the traditional mob. Instead, the gangs began lining up to cooperate with the mob, one after the other of their leaders suddenly changing their whole business model.

The mobsters fought with each other, though. It was almost a relief that something so normal was happening. There was a rift between the original capo and a breakaway group, and they were killing each other, though apparently not over territory, more – on general principles? It was hard to pin the murders on anyone, and twice when they'd had a suspect behind bars he was found dead in his cell. Both times there were reports of smoke in the air, but the bodies hadn't been burned. The coroner was unable to determine a definite cause of death, but noted a smell of sulfur in both cases when the body was cut open. The upside was, the public wasn't outraged or even curious about the sudden death behind bars of a Mafioso. Even the mob themselves seemed to shrug it off, just continuing their internecine war.

So the Organized Crime units at LAPD and the county Sheriff's Office were constantly in a state of fascinated confusion these days. For the last five months, over in Robbery, they'd had their own mystery, albeit a much more normal one. A burglar who used hand tools and electronics with equal ease had been breaking into meth houses, illegal casinos, and the homes of wealthy criminals, helping himself to cash and jewelry, and vanishing. He picked his targets well: These weren't people who talked to police, and again, the public didn't really care if a drug lord got robbed. He left no clues – they weren't even dead sure it was a "he" – but they figured that if they didn't do him the favor of catching him, his mutilated body was going to be found in a Dumpster someday.

The robberies kept continuing, though, one every three weeks or so. This guy was good.

.

"Come on, come on, baby," Dean whispered. "Don't let me down."

The electronic device in his hand gave a muted beep and showed three green lights. "Ah, you're beautiful," Dean whispered with a smile, and slipped the device into a bag he wore cross-body.

With the home's electronic security disabled, it was only a matter of moments before he'd picked the lock of the oak double doors. He depressed the handle very gently, listening for any voices inside. The whole first floor was dark – all eight windows in front and back – but he attributed his success to over-caution. Take your time getting in, get what you came for, get out fast.

It didn't work that way tonight.

He slipped in and closed the door most of the way without latching it. By the light spill around the edges of the window blinds, he could tell that he was in a wide entry hall with a big curved staircase.

The massive chandelier overhead flashed to life. His eyes were accustomed to the darkness, and he blinked, blinded. When he opened his eyes he saw his welcoming committee – six muscular lugs on the staircase and lining the railing ten feet above, all pointing rifles at him.

He almost said "Overkill much?", but he didn't want to give them any ideas.

Instead, he raised his hands slowly. "Not here to hurt anyone."

A woman came out of the room to his right. She had long dark hair and intelligent eyes, and a businesslike attitude that kept him quiet while she took the bag off him and searched him. He raised his eyebrows a little at the nearest goon with just a trace of a smile – Hey, getting patted down by a pretty woman! – but the goon was unamused.

"I'm not armed," Dean said.

The woman, keeping his bag, backed away from him and shouted upward, "Consigliere!"

A man came out of a room upstairs and moved along the railing over the hall, looking down at Dean. He had rumpled black hair and a sensual mouth, and the hand that ran along the railing was long-fingered and looked supple. For some reason, he was wearing a trench coat. The expression on his face was serious and a little cruel, and the goons made way for him. He looked at the woman and gave a little nod.

And the first thought in Dean's head was: Hot.

And the second thought was: What the hell was that, Winchester?

And the third thought was: Can't breathe!

The woman had produced a plastic bag while he'd been lusting over Michael Corleone up there, and she slipped it over his head, drawing it tight. He tried to wrench free from her, but she was unbelievably strong, and the air in the bag was gone in one breath. Best thing to do, collapse and pretend to be unconscious and hope she stops.

So he did, hitting the floor with redness swimming in his eyes and his hands losing their strength as he pulled at the bag, and maybe he wasn't pretending.

The bag was lifted. He tried not to gasp air noisily but had the feeling he did.

Then he heard two words from a deep, slightly husky voice above: "Interrogation room."

He let them drag him someplace. He tried to keep some sense of where they were going, but his system was too busy trying to restore its oxygen supply. By the time he'd fully come to, he was in a plain hard chair in a plain bare room with two bright light bulbs overhead. There was duct tape on his mouth and his hands were cuffed – though in front of him, one good thing.

A door opened a few yards in front of him. Trench Coat Gangster walked in alone, closing the door behind him. Dean met his gaze steadily. His expression was still cold as he walked to Dean with a measured pace and ripped the duct tape off of his mouth.

He flinched, then grinned up. "Thanks. Now I don't have to shave my chin tomorrow."

"You may not be alive tomorrow. What's your name?"

Humorless bastard. "Dean."

"Why are you in my house, Dean?"

"Doing a little scouting for a RICO team. They all know I'm here, so if anything happens to me, your ass is grass."

The guy stretched his mouth, a little impatient. "Why are you in my house, Dean?"

Dean sighed. "Word on the grapevine is, you like gold coins. Don't blame you, I'm a fan of liquidity myself. Found out about the wall safe in your office, and figured – "

"From whom?"

"Some guy in a bar. I forget."

Now there was a flick of a smile. "So you're protective to the point of stupidity, as well as brave to the point of stupidity."

Dean shrugged. "Not much to protect. Some drunk bozo I don't even know."

"Actually it was Frederic, my chef."

Oh man, Frederic sleeps with the fishes – And then the truth crashed on him. "You set this up."

Hot Felon nodded, once. "You've been irritating a local representative of the Sinaloa Cartel. Two robberies in five months. Certainly not enough stolen to put a dent in his business, but it's the principle of the thing. He can't let anyone steal one cent from him and get away with it. We do business, from time to time. I told him I could track you down and turn you over to him, in return for a favor at a later date."

Dean literally had to choke down nausea. He knew the kinds of things the cartel would do to him before they finally put him out of his misery and left his body somewhere public.

He swallowed hard and steadied his voice. "What do I need to do to keep from being turned over to them?"

There was a long moment of silence. Dean looked up at the consigliere. His eyes were intense, and there was a very slight smile on his face.

Quick calculation: Is it more hazardous to have cartel goons carving on you, or to screw a good-looking guy, put him to sleep and jump out a window? Not a contest. He relaxed his face and let his smile slip sideways. "I mean, there's gotta be something."

The consigliere dropped to his haunches at eye level with Dean. His beautiful left hand moved over Dean's, turning it slightly. He dipped into a pocket of the trench coat, produced a key, unlocked Dean's cuffs.

Then he said – and the whole time, never lost that provocative smile – "You are not unattractive. But I'm not quite that desperate for companionship."

He stood, dropped the cuffs into a coat pocket, and went to a utility sink installed near, but not on, the back wall. He reached underneath it and pressed something, and the back wall slid away to reveal the back wall. The same sheetrock, the same color of paint. The only difference was that a door was now revealed.

"There's a stairway behind that door. Go down and you'll be in a tunnel that leads off the property. Don't make any noise."

Dean stood, looked at the door, and had the sudden feeling that the tunnel led directly to the cartel's headquarters. "What's the catch?"

"Well, for one thing, you will commit no robberies or burglaries for the next two months."

"I think the cartel has a longer memory than that."

"In two months, Mr. Sanchez may have changed his mind about your importance. Or there may be a substantial change in cartel personnel. You never know."

"You know. Don't you?"

"Do you have enough money to support yourself for two months?"

Dean's face showed his bafflement. "Don't worry about me."

"I don't care about you at all," said Albert Schweitzer Gotti. "If it becomes clear that you're alive, that I let you go, I'll be in immediate danger from both the cartel and my own people. Move to San Bernardino County and commit no crimes." He reached into the coat pocket again – it was like a magic act – and pulled out a thick wad of bills. He extended them to Dean. "Take this. I understand that eating is important."

The weirdness of that sentence just blended in nicely with the weirdness of the whole thing. Dean took the money, although – God knew why – he felt compelled to explain. "Most of what I steal doesn't go to me. I buy a lot of information. There's something I have to do."

"How interesting," in an utterly uninterested tone. "Move to San Bernardino, somewhere in walking distance of restaurants. I want that car on the road as little as possible."

"OK," Dean said. Frederic had obviously been a thorough spy. Then, as he stuffed the money in his inside jacket pocket, "Uh – Thanks."

"I'm doing you a very substantial favor. I'll expect a very substantial favor in return."

"Sure thing, Vito."

His eyebrows drew together a little, his head tilted, and for a moment he just looked – rather adorably – confused. "My name's not Vito."

And that was the capper, a Mafioso who had apparently never even heard of "The Godfather." Dean headed for the door to the staircase. "I'll see myself out."

As he opened the door, he glanced back over his shoulder. The consigliere was at the utility sink, and looked over his shoulder at Dean.

When the other door closed, the consigliere slid the false wall back into place. Then he went to the hallway door, looked back and said something into the empty room. Red-orange light flickered behind him as he left.

The staff was waiting for him in the huge living room. Two of them were kneeling before a roaring fireplace, chanting quietly. Most of the others lounged on chairs or stools, smoking or drinking black coffee. But Hannah, the aide who'd asphyxiated Dean half to death, stood straight by the entry. She'd probably been standing there since he left.

All but the chanters stood as he entered, and even the chanters lowered their voices. He gave Hannah a little nod, and she smiled. He looked over at two of the others. "There's a scorch mark in the interrogation room that needs to be cleaned."

They both grinned and left, passing him with a nod. Hannah, though, looked less cheery. "Castiel, I thought Sanchez wanted the thief delivered to him."

"Tell him that if he actually wanted the victim's DNA sprayed all over his hideout and his personnel, he's less intelligent than I thought." Hannah nodded, and Castiel continued, "I don't think Mr. Sanchez's displeasure will be an issue for very long."

She smiled again and left, pulling her phone out of her pocket.

Most of the staff members also left. The consigliere took off his coat, rolled his shirt sleeves to the elbow, and knelt by the other two at the fireplace, joining the chant.

A rapidly-walked ten minutes later, Dean came to a staircase leading up to ground level. The entrance was capped with an LA Public Works manhole cover set in a park at the angle between two banks of shrubbery. Keeping a close eye on the people around him, he found a couple of street signs and oriented himself. The Impala was about a mile away.

Fortunately, he had the keys in his jeans, not in the bag of burglary equipment that was still back in the Bel Air mansion. He got to the 10 Freeway and headed east, to El Monte and his apartment.

His rent was paid to the end of the month, so he wouldn't be giving his landlord the right amount of notice but at least he wouldn't be doing the guy out of any money. He packed his small amount of personal property into the Impala and dropped a note into the rent slot – "Had to move. Family emergency. Sorry. Dean, #3."

He got back on the 10 and headed east.

.

Three days later, Castiel stood at the door of an apartment in San Bernardino. He gestured at the doorknob, the lock opened, and he let himself in.

If Dean's apartment was any indication, his life of crime wasn't profitable. He was living in a studio apartment whose impersonal furnishings screamed that they came with the place. The small bathroom was a separate room. Everything else, including a kitchen alcove and a pulled-out, unmade sofa bed, was in one room.

He took his time going through Dean's belongings – magazines about cars, books by Kurt Vonnegut and Ray Bradbury, classic rock CDs, plain white underwear and T-shirts, lots of denim and flannel. He glanced at a laptop computer that sat on a desk that looked like it had been built for a ten-year-old girl in 1975.

He moved over to the nightstand by the bed and was opening a drawer when he noticed a shallow box labeled "Books" under the bed. Before he could pull it out, though, he raised his head as though listening.

The doorknob turned and stopped. Dean hadn't expected it to be unlocked.

He slammed the door open so hard that anyone standing behind it would have had a broken nose. His gun was drawn, held in his left hand, even before he spotted Castiel sitting calmly at the dining table.

Dean pulled to one side of the doorway, shifting the gun to a two-handed grip as he yelled, "I have your boy at gunpoint. Show yourselves or he dies!"

"I'm alone," Castiel said quietly, unmoving.

"Sure, you guys always go around without muscle," Dean said. "Hands in the air."

Castiel hesitated, shrugged, raised his hands.

"Stand up. Coat off. Jacket, too."

Castiel quirked a smile as he complied. "I thought we had some chemistry, but I didn't realize you enjoyed this kind of role-playing."

"No role, buddy. I remember that I owe you, but unexpected visits make me nervous, especially break-ins. Turn around, hands in the air."

"I'm unarmed," Castiel said, doing so.

"OK. Go over to the bathroom door, nice and slow. Open it and stand in the doorway."

Castiel obeyed, and Dean moved into the room on a parallel path. Castiel looked a little puzzled. "In the doorway?"

"Your flunky isn't going to want to shoot you. But if I see anyone behind you, one bullet straight through both of you. This gun can do it."

"Good thinking. Or it would be, if in fact there were anyone in the bathroom."

And, in fact, there wasn't. Since there was no other place to hide – the bed was set so low that only a child could have squeezed underneath it – Dean lowered the gun's aim, but kept it gripped firmly. "OK. You're either here to collect on the favor I owe you, or you changed your mind about letting me go and you're here to kill me. I figure the odds are fifty-fifty. What do you say?"

"I say the odds are one hundred to zero in favor of the former. You're of no use to me dead. May I put my clothes back on?"

Dean looked a little amused. The guy sounded like he was standing there naked. He spent a moment or two looking over Castiel's slim body, his mouth, the finely sculpted hands still held obediently in the air.

Then he said, "Go stand over by the bed."

Castiel did. Dean put the gun down on the dining table next to him, picked up Castiel's coat and jacket, and searched them quickly for weapons, watching Castiel the whole time.

"You have no idea how foolish you're going to feel later on."

"Better foolish than dead." Dean tossed the garments on the table, picked up the gun, and backed away. "OK."

Cas came to the table and put on his jacket as Dean moved over to the apartment door and closed it. "All right. So if you're not here to kill me, it's the favor. What is it?"

Castiel slid on the trench coat, smoothing the lapels and sleeves before he looked up. "I have a proposition for you."

Dean's face was a study in mixed emotions. Cas smiled a little and sat on a dining chair. "A business proposal."

"You need a B and E guy? I'd have thought you people would have plenty of those on the payroll."

"I do."

After a moment, Dean carefully approached and sat in the chair opposite Castiel. He kept the gun in his right hand, resting it on his knee under the table. "OK, I'll bite. So why me?"

"You have a qualification that none of my other employees has. Stop pointing that silly thing at me and start thinking. Why do you think I allowed you to escape the other night?"

Dean's eyes were hard, but his grin was relaxed. "I thought that had to do with my masculine charm."

"We'll get into your masculine charm later."

"You mean we'll get into the subject later, right?"

"Mm," Castiel said in a neutral tone. Then he cocked his head slightly and his eyes went black from rim to rim.

Every muscle in Dean's face and body tensed as he swore violently. "You're a demon."

Castiel's eyes went back to normal. "That speeds things up. I was afraid I'd have to prove our existence."

Dean fired.

The bullet slammed into the mattress. Castiel was somehow behind Dean, and in the next moment his left elbow bent around Dean's neck in a headlock and his right hand gripped Dean's gun hand.

"Please don't do that," Castiel said calmly. "This meatsuit is attractive and mostly undamaged. I'd like to keep it that way."

"Meatsuit – you son of a bitch – "

Dean wrenched violently, his muscles surging, but he could barely move. Castiel kept his grip on Dean's arm and neck, kept him forced down in the chair. He flicked one finger at the gun and it flew across the room.

Something gave way in Dean. He didn't relax, he collapsed, resting his head on Castiel's arm as though asking for support. "OK. Do it."

"Do what?"

"Just do it!"

Castiel released Dean, went to the other side of the table, and sat down. "You insist on believing that I'm here to kill you. When I think it's quite clear that if I wanted to do that, your body would be cooling now and I'd be a half-mile away looking at a wine list."

He had to admire how quickly Dean fought off some kind of obvious despair. For a moment he stayed slumped in the chair, his arms dangling. Then he gave a deep sigh, set his jaw, sat up and met Castiel's gaze defiantly. "I'm dying to know why you let me boss you around with a gun you knew damn well wouldn't hurt you."

"I wanted to prove that I'm no threat to you."

"You mean except for the whole possession thing. Or the whole tricking me into selling my soul so I fry in Hell forever thing."

This time it was Castiel who allowed his gaze to move slowly over Dean. "I'm not interested in your soul."

Dean shifted in the chair, sat up a bit straighter.

"And in any case, there's no 'trick' involved. You'll know if you're being offered a deal for your soul. You'll be able to say no. And the bargain won't be sealed until you kiss the demon with whom you struck the deal."

Dean gave him a smile that managed to be equally grim and tantalizing. "What if you kiss a demon without a deal?"

"Then that's simply a kiss."

The two looked at each other for a moment.

Then Dean cleared his throat. "All right. What do you want?"

"Obviously you know that demons exist. Did you know that the demons of the Los Angeles area are fighting a civil war?"

Dean shook his head.

"There are two factions, the Terrestrials and the Loyalists. Believe me, you want the Terrestrials to win."

"I want you all to slaughter each other in bloody screaming pain."

Castiel raised his eyebrows a little. "Well. That does happen.

"The Loyalists are loyal to Lucifer's goals for Earth. Lucifer himself is in a mystical cage in Hell at this moment. The Loyalists want to raise him and follow him in turning Earth into a district of Hell. Humans slaughtered or enslaved. Literal scorched earth. Any natural resource turned over to Lucifer either for his enjoyment or so that he can use it to make war on Heaven."

"So I assume you're a Terrestrial."

"Yes. I'm not claiming that we're righteous. We kill if we feel the need, we use human bodies to enjoy their senses, we use our powers to obtain things you'd say we have no right to. But we actually enjoy the Earth as it is. We like the greenery, the coolness, the colors, the taste of food, the combination of physical and emotional excitement you call sexuality. Lucifer hates human beings because he feels they came between him and God, and his followers embrace that hatred. Well – " he shrugged, with a snicker – "demons never had a relationship with God to be damaged. We Terrestrials don't mind people. Most of them are harmless. Some of them are useful or amusing."

Dean's breath sped up. His mouth went into a cruel line, and the expression in his eyes would have been frightening if Castiel had been human.

But Castiel only seemed to note the expression with faint interest before he continued. "As I said, at this time, the war is mainly confined to the Los Angeles area. But don't imagine that demons all over the globe aren't watching, and closely." A slight flat smile. "We're a pragmatic species. If the Loyalists lose here, if enough of them die or are thrown back into Hell, support for them in other places will evaporate. But if the Loyalists win here, demons all over the world will want to – what's the expression – jump on the bandwagon."

Dean shrugged. "OK. Go Terrestrials. What's it got to do with me?"

"I want you to kill a particular Loyalist as the favor that you owe me. Then I want to hire you to kill others."

Dean just stared across the table for a moment.

Then he gave a sharp bark of laughter. "OK. First, burglars and hit men are two different things, you should know that. Second, it sounds like you guys have a hard enough time killing each other, what makes you think a human wouldn't just be walking into a meat grinder? Third, what makes you think that any – decent human being would cooperate with you assholes in anything? Fourth, gee, this doesn't feel like a trap at all. Fifth – " he thought for a second – "screw you."

Castiel shifted slightly in the chair. "From your reaction to me just now, I'd think you'd love the chance to kill a few demons. And from the looks of things – " he glanced around the apartment – "you could use a job that pays well."

"I don't care how much – "

"I'm talking about up to a million dollars."

That brought Dean up short for a moment. Then he shook his head. "Even if I thought you weren't a lying asshole, there's nothing you could – "

He stopped, his gaze fixed in mid-distance.

Castiel raised his head just a bit.


	2. Chapter 2

_[Great thanks to Catrin Lewis and Lisa J. Emerson for their Latin assistance! By the way, Catrin's book, "The Single Eye," is available now via Amazon and Kindle. It's about a pair of young architects with a sinister would-be client, and asks the question, "For what would you sell your soul?"]_

.

After a full fifteen seconds of silence, Dean re-focused on Castiel. "Do any of you guys ever tell the truth about anything?"

"Well, everything I've told you so far has been the truth."

"Do you – Is there – Can you find someone who's been possessed by a demon? Lure him into a devil's trap for an exorcism?"

"It's possible, under certain conditions. Who has been possessed?"

"My brother. Sam Winchester."

Castiel leaned back a little in his chair, thinking.

"He's my only family. Everyone else is gone, except for an uncle we never really got to know. I've been looking for him nonstop, gave up my life in Austin to do it, and I'm – Can you find him? Can you get him free?"

Castiel tapped his fingers on the table. "How long has he been possessed?"

"Six months, four days." Dean told him what had happened. "When I got over to Sam's place, a guy named Bobby Singer was there."

Castiel gave a small nod. "A hunter of some infamy. I know three demons who were exorcised by him, all still trapped in Hell."

"Good," Dean said savagely. "He'd been tracking that demon too, the one who possessed Sam. He gave me a fast explanation and we got back to my place, but Sam was gone."

He stared at the tabletop. "I can't get over how he sounded. The last time I saw my brother."

Castiel looked away from Dean, looked back.

"I told Bobby, tell me how to find him. Tell me how to fix him. And he said, I can give you a start. But a lot of it will have to be your own work and your own instincts. And you're gonna have to give up your life, live on the road. You got enough money for that? I said not for long, and he said, Well, you're gonna have to figure out ways to keep yourself fed and buy supplies but without putting down roots. You understand what I'm sayin'? And even then, understand, you might never find him alive. And I said, I've got to do this. This isn't a choice. Just tell me how." Dean nodded. "He understood. I could tell, personal experience.

"I worked installing home security systems. I called in sick the next two days and Bobby gave me a crash course in demon tracking and hunting. Gave me a reading list, too." Dean indicated with a wave of his hand. "I've got a library under the bed. After two days, Bobby had to move, some newbie hunters were getting themselves killed a couple hundred miles away. I told him I was ready to handle things on my own, but I could tell, when he said goodbye, he thought I was gonna die soon and bloody." A quick grin. "I call him once a month or so. I always start out, 'Hey Bobby, not dead yet.'"

He took a quick breath. "After Bobby left I went in to work. I'd been there seven years, I had a lot of access. First time I ever stole, I took stuff from my employer. Everything from lock picks to electronics. Robbery was gonna be how I supported myself, but I felt so lousy afterward, I decided I couldn't steal from good people. So – that's been my life the last six months. Tracking demons and stealing from scumbags. Good – "

A deep broken sigh erupted from him suddenly, as though it had leaped on him. He went silent for a moment, then finished, "Good times."

Castiel studied him, looked away, looked back.

Then he said, "At six months, there's a chance. It depends on how the demon has used your brother's body, but there's a chance. But time is of the essence. I will tell you that even now it may be too late. We might exorcise the demon and discover that your brother's soul is about to leave its battered body. You may get only a last word or two with him; you may not even get that."

Dean swallowed, nodded. "Understood. But the demon is frying in Hell. And there's a chance we get Sam back."

"Emotionally and maybe physically traumatized, but yes. Do you know the demon's name?"

"Andrealphus. Last I knew he was in the Los Angeles area, that's why I came here, but you may have noticed, it's a big area."

"Nonetheless, I can find the demon, pin him in a devil's trap, and bring you to him." A slight smile. "I'll probably absent myself for the actual ritual, if you don't mind. Do you know how to do the ritual?"

"First thing I studied. I've done it a couple of times."

"Good. There are a few Loyalists that I need to have destroyed. They all work and live with intense security, they can spot a demon coming long before it gets into the room with them. But a human – particularly a human with experience in stealthy entry – they'll never see that coming. I can supply you with weaponry that will allow you to kill them – "

"You – what?"

"There are such weapons. I need these Loyalists destroyed, not just exorcised. As discussed, you will kill the first one to return my favor. Then you will kill the others, and receive your brother in payment."

"No way, man. You'll let me do your dirty work and then vanish, and I'll be back at square one. Or I'll get killed, and I know you're not going to free Sam just to honor my memory. No. First we save Sam. Then I take care of your hit list."

The demon's eyebrows drew together a little. "While it's true – "

A cell phone went off with a harsh rasping buzz. Castiel slipped his hand into his suit jacket and pulled out the phone. "Speak."

A few moments of silence, then, "Excellent. And Mr. Vincent is back at the office, conducting business? – Of course. The Loyalist cause couldn't have a better leader." Dean looked rather sharply at Castiel as the demon continued, "Of course I'm not underestimating your contributions to the cause, Lester. You've been both brave and loyal, worthy of great rewards. But I think we can all agree – " there was a silky threat in Castiel's pleasant murmur – "that Mr. Vincent is the best possible leader we could have, can't we? – Of course. There is a Council meeting at the office in an hour and a half, so I'll meet you at the restaurant at, say, seven o'clock? Very well." He disconnected abruptly and shook his head, looking impatient.

"Uh – not that it really matters to me," Dean said, "but I thought you said you were a Terrestrial."

Castiel looked at Dean as though just remembering he was there. "Yes. I should have told you. I've been undercover with the Loyalists for some time."

"Undercover with demons? I'd rather be undercover with a drug cartel!"

"The difference is minimal," Castiel said blandly. He stood and put the phone back in his jacket pocket. "I have to leave. I propose a compromise. If you kill the first demon, returning my favor, I'll trap Andrealphus for you, and you will give me your word that you'll kill the other demons. Agreed?"

"If I get killed, you see to it that Sam gets freed anyway, and gets any medical help he might need. Agreed?"

Castiel gave a small nod. "If we exorcise your brother, but his life can't be saved, you will finish the hit list anyway. Agreed?"

"You don't have to worry about that. If Sam's dead, I haven't got a lot to live for anyway." Dean stood and extended his hand. "Deal."

Castiel looked at Dean's hand, a little surprised, then extended his own. As they shook hands, their eyes met.

"I'll be in touch soon with the details and the weapons."

"Right. Give me your name and phone, so I can get in touch if I need to."

The demon raised an eyebrow. "I'll be in touch with you." Then, relenting a bit, "My name is Castiel."

"Sounds like an angel name."

"Yes. It amused the demon who named me."

He walked to the door like a human and let himself out.

Dean wiped his face, shook his head, and stared into the distance.

Not just a mob bigwig. An effing mob bigwig demon.

And Dean still couldn't stop thinking that he was hot.

Crap.

.

"Mr. Sanchez was displeased that you didn't turn the thief over to him," Mr. Vincent said to his consigliere.

An hour and a half after Castiel had met with Dean, he and Mr. Vincent were sitting in the capo's office at Sucro Corp., a huge corner room with wide windows looking over the city thirteen stories below.

Castiel looked a little concerned. "Is he still displeased?"

"Well, no. Mr. Sanchez sees things very differently now. He's a whole new man, one might say." They both chuckled. "I just wondered why you didn't do as he asked."

"An over-abundance of caution. In case the thief or his car had been seen anywhere in our vicinity, I didn't want his body to turn up. Human police are always too eager to ask questions and obtain search warrants, and while they're not a major threat, I prefer not to risk any accidental discoveries. I told Hannah to tell Sanchez as much, but she got the impression that he dismissed her because she's female."

"Odd," Mr. Vincent said. "Because he was saying just yesterday how he admired Hannah's brains and perception."

The consigliere gave a small narrow smile. "As you say, a whole new man. In any case, Mr. Vincent, you didn't need to wait for a council meeting to ask me about my decisions. I am always eager to take questions and direction from you."

"I know that, De Santis. And I appreciate it."

The intercom on Vincent's desk buzzed. "Mr. Williams and Edward Vincent are here," a secretary's voice announced.

"Tell them to come on back. – Almost a quorum." Vincent stood and indicated that Castiel should move from the chair at his desk to a square of sofa and chairs around a walnut coffee table. He greeted one of the new arrivals with a broad grin and handshake. "Son!"

"Daddy!" Edward said, with an equally broad grin.

Since the original hosts had, in fact, been father and son, the two demons frequently enjoyed the joke. Castiel, meantime, went over to the other new arrival, a lean black man with great facial bone structure. "Revard! I haven't seen you since – it was – "

"Since I lost my last meatsuit," Revard said ruefully. "This one's darn good-looking, don't you think?"

"I do. And I understand you're in charge of weaponry, since the unfortunate death of Benthes."

"I'm going to make our enemies suffer for that," Revard said quietly.

Mr. Vincent said to both of them, "Try to remember to use Earthen names. It avoids accidental slips in public."

Revard grinned, shaking Castiel's hand as if he were just being introduced. "I'm Mr. Williams."

"Mr. De Santis."

After being called, Mr. Vincent's secretary brought in black coffee for the Vincents, plain water for Castiel and Revard. Mr. Vincent held the door for her, made sure that she was back at her desk, and closed the office door. He looked at Revard. "I understand that the possession of Mr. Sanchez was textbook."

Revard nodded. "Sanchez was expected to be alone for several hours, so Eleazar had a chance to get used to his new surroundings. Sanchez had – " he shrugged – "no spiritual strength to resist. Eleazar has already called Sanchez's contacts suggesting several known Terrestrials as ravenous new customers."

Edward said, "I understand that addictive substances are excellent weapons against humans, but will they work on demons? We don't get addicted."

"We don't get addicted," Revard said dryly. "Terrestrials overindulge themselves in Earthen pleasures to a point that overwhelms even demonic resistance."

"I hope so," Edward said in a suddenly vicious tone. "I look forward to the day when our forces can storm bases full of those self-indulgent weaklings and wipe them out."

Revard's handsome face was suddenly marred by a bloodthirsty grin, his eyes going completely black for a moment.

"I want your report on the state of our forces," Mr. Vincent said to Edward, "but first, Mr. De Santis, is there something that concerns you? You seem worried."

Castiel looked up from the tabletop. "I'm not worried, merely concentrating. I'm trying to remember how wide Mr. Sanchez's territory is, when we can possibly make attacks beyond the present-day borders."

Mr. Vincent chuckled. "Always thinking a step ahead. Get together with Mr. Sanchez about that and send me a report. Now, Edward – "

The intercom buzzed, and the secretary's voice, sounding a little stressed, said, "The lady who often – Mal – Mala – "

"Mala-ZEER." An impatient female voice in the background. "It's not that hard to say."

"Let her come back. Then no interruptions until I say otherwise." Mr. Vincent's tone was crisp, his jaw set. He sprang to his feet and strode to the door.

Revard grinned and raised his eyebrows at Castiel, a someone's-in-trouble look. Castiel remained impassive.

A woman with an abundance of both blonde hair and bone jewelry flung open the door, missing Mr. Vincent by an inch. The hemline of her full red skirt was almost to her ankles, but the dress couldn't be considered modest, not with that neckline. She carried a large cloth bag woven with unusual designs.

"Mr. Vin – " she began.

Vincent slammed the door. "Once and for all, Hell-bait: You use Earthen names only in this building. Is that clear?"

"I don't have one. I don't have to worry about what humans think. My rituals are performed in isolation."

"Oh, yes," Edward said sarcastically. "You're practically a nun."

Malazir walked over to him. "Occasionally I enjoy myself with a human. Then I dispose of him and continue my work. Not like you, with your red-headed – "

"You're changing the subject, Malazir." Mr. Vincent stayed near the door, and his voice dared Malazir to keep her back turned to him. "I have told you numerous times, adopt a human name and use it. Your research into raising our Lord is important, and you perform it well. I don't want anything to happen to you. But something will, if you insist on following your own counsel instead of mine."

"It's not my counsel. It is our Lord Lucifer's. He has told us that we are to hate and rule over those mongrel animals with souls. And you want me to name myself after them? So they'll feel comfortable around me? Is that what Lord Lucifer would want?"

Vincent's eyes went black. "It's what I want. There's a difference between doctrinal purity and contempt for the chain of command."

Castiel's deep voice was soft. "May I make a suggestion?"

"Please," both of them said at once, looking at him.

Castiel looked at Mr. Vincent. "If it didn't do too much violence to her principles, perhaps Malazir could adopt an Earthen title rather than an Earthen name? If she were to introduce herself as Lady Malazir, that could be – a first name, a last name, the name of an estate. It would sound less infernal than exotic, and – " now his gaze shifted to the blonde and he smiled – "she is exotic looking."

She let her voice go sensual. "Thank you, Castiel. Lady Malazir – I like that."

"It won't make you Lord Lucifer's bride, you know," Edward said.

"Shut up, Edward." Vincent, his eyes normal, rejoined them at the table." An excellent idea, Castiel. Malazir, you will henceforth announce yourself as Lady Malazir when you arrive here for a Council meeting. Perhaps your enjoyment of the title will even lead to your arriving on time."

He sat, and Malazir remained standing, looking down at him like one who always holds an ace in her hand. "The next time I commune with Lord Lucifer, I'll convey your approval to him."

There was a brief uncomfortable silence. Malazir sat and looked at the center of the coffee table with feigned surprise. "You weren't planning to begin without an invocation to the Morning Star, were you?"

Another uncomfortable moment. "We were waiting for you to incant it," Mr. Vincent said to her.

"How nice," said Malazir, in a tone that clearly meant yeah-sure-you-were. She pulled a black pillar candle from her bag, set it in the middle of the table, and touched the wick to light it. She held her hands straight out, fists clenched, and the others around the table did so as well, each touching the back of his or her fists to the backs of the next demons'. "Lord Lucifer, Morning Star, Ruler of the Infernal Realm. . . "

Castiel opened his eyes and, with a tiny movement of his head, looked around. He could sense where security devices were placed, even when hidden from sight. His eyes closed and he bowed his head again.

After the meeting broke up, he walked down the hall, turned the corner, and looked back. Vincent and Edward were still talking. Castiel sensed the kinds of security devices hidden in the hallway leading to the office, then slipped away.

.

"It was originally Mr. Vincent's idea to possess the bodies of organized crime members," Castiel said. He and Dean were again sitting at Dean's dining room table. Dean had a glass of whiskey in front of him, Castiel a glass of water.

"It was a brilliant idea. If a mob member seems suddenly self-seeking or ruthless, he probably always had those tendencies. The ability to influence humans, through money or favor or catering to vices, is considerable. If a mobster escapes from prison, no infernal magic is suspected, simply corruption. If a mobster dies a sudden and bloody death, no one is surprised.

"The two – well, arguably the two most powerful demons in Los Angeles possessed Carl Vincent and his son Edward. Others were taken over, family members and co-workers. At Vincent's legitimate business, Sucro, a very small minority of upper management are demons; but in our private lives, it's much more convenient to be surrounded by our own kind. All members of my staff are demons."

"I figured that out," Dean said, "and I can't tell you how much better I felt. I thought some skinny little gal had put a bag over my head and I couldn't even fight her off. It was a relief when I realized she was a demon."

"Yes," Castiel said with a tiny smile. "You may remain confident in your ability to fight off a small human woman."

"Thanks," Dean said dryly. "So when did you go undercover with the Loyalists?"

Castiel drew a breath. "When the Los Angeles group started splitting, my inclinations were with the Terrestrials, but I've never been one to make a show or take a stand publicly. I remained where I was, answering to the same authorities. When I began rising in the organization, it occurred to me that I could be of greater use to the Terrestrials as I attained more power among the Loyalists."

"It just 'occurred' to you to risk your life for a cause you believed in? Isn't that, you know, sort of human?"

Something came over Castiel, his eyes closed and he pulled back in his chair a little, as if fighting off some pain.

"You OK?"

The demon's eyes popped open, and Dean was a little surprised – partly that they weren't completely black, and partly at how blue the irises were. He hadn't noticed that before. "Fighting for a cause is not necessarily human," Castiel said, and stood quickly.

He went to a box that he'd set down by the door when he'd come in, picked it up, and put it on the table. He lifted the lid and pulled out Dean's cross-body bag, giving it to him.

"My stuff! Great. Thought I wouldn't see it again. So you do need – What the – Are those _teeth_?"

He was staring at the second item Castiel produced from the box – a long slightly curved bone flattened on one end to make a handle, sharpened on the other end, and partly lined with undeniable teeth.

"It's the jawbone of a donkey," Castiel said, "hardened and sharpened in Hell. Either edge will cut, and you can use it with a scythe-like motion when confronted with several attackers. But – " he bounced a finger off of the sharpened tip – "it can be used to stab in close quarters, too. A versatile weapon."

Dean picked it up by the handle, looking interested, and turned it in his hand. "And this will kill a demon?"

"Yes."

"Man. I didn't think anything would."

Castiel produced the next weapon from the box, a foot-long dagger whose hilt, guard, and blade were all of the same softly lustrous silver-colored material. He laid it on the table in front of Dean. "This is an angel blade. Its use is clearly only for one attacker at a time, but its power is limitless. It will kill angels, humans, animals, or demons, if thrust in deeply and in the right spot. Be careful," as Dean picked it up, "it's much sharper than it looks."

"Why the name? Because it sends people to the angels?"

"It originated in Heaven. It is the only weapon used by angels."

"OK. So much for the fluffy white wings."

Castiel went back into the box and laid a handgun on the table. "I wasn't sure what kind of pistol you have, so I brought one of the correct kind to fire this ammunition."

He put a small container on the table and removed the lid. The bullets inside were of the same lustrous silver Dean had just seen, though the shell casings were normal.

"These bullets are made from angel blades. It's an extraordinarily difficult process, and the bullets are rare. Don't waste them."

Dean nodded, hefted the gun. "Yeah, I'll have to keep this one for these bullets. Besides, I like the ammunition in my own gun."

"It's special, also?"

"Miniature devil's trap etched into the base of each bullet. You shoot one of those into a demon, it won't kill him, but it'll stop him cold."

"That's quite ingenious."

"Yeah. Imagine my delight when it worked the first time."

"If you practice with the gun I provided – "

"I will. And I won't use the angel bullets for practice."

Castiel put the box down on the floor and sat back down opposite Dean. "Our goal is to set the leadership of the Loyalists against each other, breaking the cause by breaking its leaders. Your first target will be Mr. Vincent."

Dean caught his breath for a moment, then nodded. "The head of the whole Loyalist gang. OK. Nothing like starting out with a nice soft pitch."

"If it helps, I took these weapons from Mr. Vincent's personal armory. They are made by a master demonic armorer called Vulcan. So they will be very effective."

Dean nodded.

"There are two demons who will, I believe, immediately begin vying for Mr. Vincent's place – the demon who possessed the son, Edward Vincent, and a powerful sorceress demon who calls herself Lady Malazir. One of them will kill the other, and the friends of the dead demon will call for vengeance. If this does not happen, you will need to kill one of them and make it look like the rival did it. Mr. Vincent has – what would you say – a bodyguard and soldier whose name is Hex. He should also be destroyed, just because he's dangerous."

"Hex?"

"His actual name is much longer, but he prefers to go by Hex."

"Great. If this dangerous Hex is Vincent's bodyguard, I'm going to have to go through him first."

"Hex isn't always with Mr. Vincent; his schedule is difficult to predict. Except for one night a month. At the dark of the moon, Hex isolates himself to make a sacrifice to Lord Lucifer."

"What does – I don't want to know."

"No. You don't. But the point is that this month, the dark of the moon is night after tomorrow. He will be performing his rite, and Mr. Vincent will be working late at the Sucro offices."

Dean nodded, looking at the table of weapons with unseeing eyes.

"You feel overwhelmed. I would suggest that you focus solely on the first target, and we'll see what develops after that."

Dean looked at him frankly. "I'm figuring the odds are pretty much against there being anything 'after that' for me. Which is why you've got to hold up your end of the deal."

"Hannah, my most trusted aide, is searching for Andrealphus as we speak. I've told her to lure him to one of our safehouses – I've already set up a devil's trap there."

"And she doesn't wonder why she's luring a fellow demon into a devil's trap."

Castiel shrugged. "I told her that he has shown Terrestrial sympathies and needs to be sent back to Hell for correction. That's all that needs to be said."

"That's it, huh? Wow."

"You know that you must strike the death blow while the demon is in a body, don't you? Otherwise – "

"Otherwise they turn into a tornado of black smoke pouring out of the mouth, and there's nothing you can do to smoke. Yeah. Been there, failed to do that."

"And you will need to take precautions against being possessed yourself."

Dean pulled down the neck of his T-shirt to reveal a tattoo high on his chest. "Like that."

"Exactly."

Dean let the cloth go. "Bobby put that on me when he realized he couldn't talk me out of hunting Andrealphus. Amateur at-home tattooing – I don't recommend it, pain-wise. But he did a good job."

He sat back and sighed. He looked at the weapons again and took a deep drink of whiskey.

"What are the odds that I'm going to kill a living person in those bodies?"

"In the bodies we're discussing? Nil. Mr. Vincent and Edward have possessed their hosts for more than a year. Edward is in charge of the Loyalist forces, and has taken part in battles, and Mr. Vincent himself has been wounded in a lung. Malazir and Hex have possessed their bodies for a very long time. You need have no concern there."

A silent nod in response.

"How long will it take you to accustom yourself to the new weaponry?"

Dean shrugged. "A day."

"Then I'll give you the details of the attack now."

Dean went over to the 10-year-old girl's desk, fished paper and a pen out of a drawer. He came back, finished the whiskey in one long gulp, set down the glass sharply and grabbed the pen. "Shoot."

.

He realized it while he was standing in the shadows near the back entrance of Sucro: Castiel was lying about the whole thing.

The thing he was supposed to say to nullify the security cameras? It wouldn't work. He would be stopped by security as he left the site of a cold-blooded murder, with no way to escape, and his only explanation might be good for an insanity plea – might be. Castiel would move up to Vincent's position in the demon Mafia, and Andrealphus would be possessing Sam for all time.

The only argument to this extremely likely scenario: He believed Castiel.

He believed a demon. God knew why. So to speak.

He shook his head, squared his shoulders, and still standing in shadow, said, "Oculi mortui caeci sunt."

It meant "Dead eyes are blind," and would blind the non-living eyes of security cameras. Most of them in the building were hidden, Castiel had told him, but this one was obvious, encased in bullet-proof glass.

A tiny green light beneath the camera flicked off, and a tiny red light flicked on.

Castiel had given him the keypad code for the back door, but he didn't want to punch it in directly: It would be too obvious later that this was an inside job. So he let his hand-held electronic darling do the work, after he'd given her a couple of hints to speed things up.

The keypad buzzed and the door clicked. Dean seized the door latch with hospital-gloved hands and pulled the door open, still standing behind it. "Oculi mortui caeci sunt."

At this point he was going on faith. Castiel had told him that this would blind even hidden security cameras, and since he couldn't see any, he had to assume it was working.

There was a hallway to the elevators that wasn't patrolled by security guards. This was the hallway down which prisoners were dragged sometimes.

He damn near forgot to say the magic words before he stepped onto the elevator, but remembered at the last moment. He blinded the security cameras in the hallway leading to Vincent's office and started down the hall.

This was the point at which he was most likely to run across security guards. It's why he wasn't wearing a ski mask or some such: He wanted to give a frank 'n' friendly smile to anyone he ran across and a line of bull until he could immobilize them. The security guards were human, so he wore a Taser that looked like a flashlight hidden under his jacket in a loop on his belt, and Taser cartridges, blindfolds, and zip ties in his cross-body bag.

And with all that preparation – no security guards.

He breathed a sigh of relief and headed down the hall. He could see straight through Vincent's office, the large glass doors and the huge glass windows, to the lit windows of other skyscrapers in the darkness.

The door was unlocked – a sign of Vincent's self-confidence. The only other security measures, Castiel had told Dean, were motion sensors in the office itself. But since Vincent was pacing around in there, looking out his windows while apparently dictating something into a handheld device, the motion sensors would be activated anyway.

He pushed open the door, whispered "Oculi mortui caeci sunt," and said aloud, "Are you Mr. Vincent?"

Vincent spun, glaring. Then his face relaxed. He didn't outright say, "Oh, just a human," but he may as well have, and Dean suddenly realized that Castiel's plan was a good one. "What are you doing here, young man?"

"Is this where I go to apply for a job?" Dean was fumbling at an inside pocket of his jacket. "I've got my resume – "

He pulled the angel-bullet gun out of his waistband and shot.

His tension betrayed him, and he missed. The bullet tore through Vincent's shoulder and splintered the bullet-proof glass behind him on its way to who knew where.

Vincent waved a hand and Dean flew into the wall, the gun jarred from his hand, his ribcage smashing into the edge of a credenza. He lay gasping with pain as Vincent looked at his bleeding shoulder and the broken glass in enraged disbelief.

Balled up on the floor, Dean pulled up one leg of his jeans. Vincent strode toward him. "What is that? Where did you – "

Dean pulled the gun with devil's-trap bullets out of the ankle holster and fired. He didn't have time to aim well, but all it needed to do was hit Vincent, and it did, in the thigh.

Vincent went down on one knee, gave a snarling laugh, and waved his hand. Dean scrambled for the angel-bullet gun as Vincent realized he had no power. He leaped up on the bleeding leg, moved toward Dean, and stopped, unable to move farther.

Dean grabbed the angel-bullet gun in both hands, spun on his knees, and aimed. Vincent collapsed, lying on his back on the floor.

Dean stood and moved over to him. Vincent looked very human, lying helpless with his eyes closed, and Dean knew he should shoot but –

Vincent's eyes opened, black rim to rim, and his mouth gaped.

Dean fired. Vincent's forehead broke, indented inward, and blood sprayed out from under his head. His head lolled to one side, the eyes human now but sightless, and a thin trickle of black smoke rolled out of the corner of his mouth before dissipating.

Dean let out a gasp, staggered backward into the credenza, leaned on it.

He wanted to get the hell out. He re-holstered the ankle gun, put the other gun in his waistband, mumbled the camera-blinding spell again, and headed for the door.

Damn, he almost forgot. He hesitated for a moment, didn't want to stay there, but Castiel's plan had worked so far. So he found the blonde-wood hinged panels on the wall and opened them.

There was a whiteboard underneath, and a small tray that held markers. Dean grabbed a red one, uncapped it, and wrote in huge letters: "TRAITOR TO THE MORNING STAR."

He dropped the marker back on the tray. He said the camera-blinding spell all the way into the elevator, just to have something else to think of.

In the elevator, cold blurriness filled his head. He bent over, resting his hands above his knees, trying to get some blood back up to his brain.

The elevator door opened, and now the security guards –

But no. None there.

He made it out the back door and walked, unseeing and unhearing, eight blocks to the Beverly Center, a massive shopping mall with a massive parking garage. He'd never been so glad to climb into the Impala, like sliding across home plate.

He gave himself a moment to catch his breath, try to push the image of that imploded head out of his mind, get the shakiness out of his hands. Then he started the car.

As he was driving down Santa Monica Boulevard toward the 101 freeway, he heard multiple sirens in the distance.


	3. Chapter 3

He didn't hear from Castiel the next day. He didn't need to. The murder of a corporate CEO with alleged mob ties was all over the news. He listened at first, then decided not to. He was slightly nauseous with fear, and he was drinking pretty heavily, which didn't help his stomach.

He speculated whether Castiel was telling the other demons that he knew exactly who'd killed Mr. Vincent, a human with demonic weapons conveniently located in San Bernardino. And at that, demons weren't his main concern. The police were examining every inch of the crime scene, every frame of security video. One slip on his part –

Time for another drink.

In the early evening he decided he really ought to eat something, put together a sandwich, felt better. He watched a couple of stupid sitcoms on TV, had a couple more drinks, and passed out on the bed.

When he woke up, Castiel was looking down at him.

"Yo," Dean said without moving.

Castiel looked at the almost-empty whiskey bottle on the floor by the bed. "I attribute your heavy drinking to the fact that I didn't follow up with you yesterday."

"Not really." Dean sat up slowly, giving his organs time to shift into place. His head hurt. "I figured you'd be busy yesterday. Demons freaking out and all of them asking you what to do."

"A fairly accurate description."

Dean put one foot on the floor, the other on the bottle. He nudged it out of the way. "I know what our deal was, and I'm not a welsher. Normally." He looked up at the demon's impassive face. "I'm not a killer, Castiel. It's not just that I don't want to. I don't think I can. Find anything else for me to do – break into the White House, steal the Crown Jewels, whatever, I'm up for it. But I literally don't think that I can do any more killing."

"Perhaps you will feel differently when I tell you that I have your brother in a devil's trap."

"Probably I will, but I still don't – "

His back straightened, his eyes went wide, he tipped up his face again. "Is that what you're telling me?"

"He is in an empty Sucro building in an office park in Riverside."

That was when Dean learned that, for him at least, adrenaline was the world's greatest hangover cure. He leaped to his feet, almost knocking Castiel over, threw back the spread and reached under the bed for the bag containing his exorcism supplies. As he straightened, he felt a sinking sensation, though. "Better grab a sandwich. And a bottle of water. Don't want to get shaky."

"A good idea."

He checked the supplies in the bag, grabbed two bottles of water. Then, as he was about to put mustard on cold cuts and bread, he stopped, the bottle upside-down in the air.

He was about to drive out to an isolated location with a demon.

He didn't want to believe this was a trap. He wanted to believe that Sam was a couple of hours away from being released from a nightmare.

But looked at from Castiel's point of view – what could be sweeter? Vincent gone, the Loyalists starting to fight with each other, and then here comes Castiel to kill the scumbag who murdered their great leader. Gratitude and glory and guess who's in charge now.

He finished the sandwich, dropped it in a paper bag. Then he went back to the bed, pulled the angel-bullet gun out from underneath the pillow, fished out two bullets from the little container and replaced the ones that had been shot. He put the gun in his waistband, put his jacket on to cover it. He'd never got around to taking off his ankle holster before passing out last night, and now he was glad. Castiel watched him the whole time.

He threw the water bottles in with the sandwich and grabbed the exorcism bag. "Who's drivin'?"

"We both are. Hannah is guarding the site in Riverside. I will lead you to a shopping center a mile away where you can park while I go ahead. I'll dismiss Hannah and then phone you with directions."

"Let's go."

His mind roiled with terror and hope all the way to Riverside. He tried to eat, but couldn't, although he knew he should.

Eventually Castiel drove his black Acura into the parking lot of a strip mall with a big grocery store. When Dean parked, Castiel drove out of the parking lot.

Dean put the angel-bullet gun on the seat next to him and threw his jacket over it. He tried chewing on the sandwich some more, swallowing some water. He pulled the exorcism ritual from the bag and read it over, his head darting around every few seconds to see if a threat was approaching, to listen for his phone.

.

The Acura pulled up in front of a plain metal door marked "Sucro," and Hannah slipped out, closing the door with a shaking hand. She leaned on the railing three steps up from the driveway as if she needed support.

Castiel didn't seem surprised, merely asking, "All is well?"

She nodded jerkily. "Andrealphus is safely contained. Castiel – did he have anything to do – to do with Mr. Vincent?"

"I don't believe so. His self-indulgent tendencies were known well before this, and everyone who knows him agrees that Andrealphus was never clever enough to arrange an attack like this." He raised an eyebrow. "If he did have anything to do with it, the interrogators will find out after his exorcism."

Hannah shifted her gaze. No one liked to talk about the infernal torturers. "Hex is – hysterical," she said. "He is certain that Edward arranged it so that he can take over. He's threatening violence in way that will surely draw human attention."

"I talked to him yesterday, and thought I had persuaded him to wait until we can prove something. Then, just before he left, he told me that he doesn't work for me, he worked for Mr. Vincent, and he now considers himself a – 'free agent.'"

All shakiness left Hannah. Her face grew cold with rage and her eyes went black. "He has never understood genuine leadership. You are a real leader, and you outrank him. How can he dare to talk to you like that?"

"Thank you, Hannah. I consider myself more of an adviser to leaders, but at certain times, Hex will say anything to anyone, and this is definitely one of those times. The exorcist is on his way, so you should take cover. I'll see you back at the house."

She nodded, went down the steps, got into her car, and drove off.

Castiel opened the door and took a look at the exhausted looking being slumped in a chair to which he was bound. There were devil's traps scorched into both the ceiling above him and the floor below him. Then Castiel closed the door, remaining outside, and pulled his phone out of his jacket pocket.

Dean answered before the first ring was over. "Yeah?"

"Take Magnolia Avenue south for six blocks. . ."

.

After all of this: After six months of training and terror, torturing information from demons with holy water and devil's traps; after six months of living on the road, isolated, leaps of hope when he thought he'd found Sam and plunges of despair when he hadn't, stealing money from drug dealers to buy information from demons; after all of this, it came down to fifteen minutes, some Latin, and some holy water.

Dean pulled the gun off of the car seat and carried it in his hand when he got to the Sucro building, looping the exorcism bag over his shoulder. He met Castiel's gaze steadily as he went up the three steps to the door. "Go on ahead."

Castiel merely raised his eyebrows and went in. As the door started swinging shut behind him, Dean caught it and slammed it open with this right arm, carrying the gun in his left.

First: No trap. Second: Sam.

Dean damn near dropped the gun, rushing over to him.

"Don't," Castiel said sharply as Dean put a foot by the devil's trap.

He didn't think he'd have crossed the line, but maybe Castiel had a point. Dean hovered at the scorched border, looking at a version of his brother dressed in tight black pants and a red shirt open at the throat, revealing two gold chains. His hair was even longer than usual, lank with recent sweat. There was a bleeding cut on his cheek and the shirt was torn from when he'd been tied into a chair by demons and pushed into the devil's trap. The long poles with clamps on the end that had been used to push the chair were lying nearby.

Sam raised his head as Castiel spoke, then focused on Dean. His eyes were pleading. "Dean! It's you. You found me."

"Careful," Castiel said.

Dean nodded over his shoulder. "I know. I've done this before."

He put the gun in the back of his waistband and began opening the bag. "Sam, whether that's you talking or not, hang in there. I'm gonna get that thing out of you."

Sam's mouth gaped in a smile that bared his teeth, and his eyes went black. "Too late. Sam's dead. He died last week. You're a few days too late."

It gave Dean only one emotional moment. "If that's true, then I'm even happier doing this."

"I'm leaving now," Castiel said, "but I'll be back when I sense that Andrealphus is gone. For what it's worth, I can sense Sam's presence in there."

"Thanks," Dean said in a businesslike tone, not taking his eyes off of Sam. "See you on the flip side."

Castiel left. Dean threw a dash of holy water from one of two large bottles at Sam, and he screamed.

Andrealphus fought being exorcised ferociously, bellowing, threatening, lifting the chair up a few inches and slamming it to the ground. The back of Sam's head bounced on the floor and Dean flinched, but kept going.

"Dean, please." It was Sam's voice gasping. "Please, Dean, don't do this. You'll kill me, Dean. The demon doesn't care, but you'll kill me. Please stop."

Only then did Dean pause. "Bull. 'Cause I know Sam. And he'd rather be dead than have you inside him one more minute. Benedictus deus. Gloria patri."

Sam screamed again as a volcanic cloud of putrid black smoke jetted out of his mouth, sheeted down the invisible curved walls of the devil's trap, and disappeared by the time it hit the floor.

Dean leaped into the circle and knelt. "Sam! Sam! Talk to me!"

Sam's eyes opened wide, with a terrified expression. His jaw trembled. "Cold."

"OK," Dean said in both relief and desperation. "OK, you're cold, we can fix that."

He tipped the chair back up on its legs, pulled a pocketknife out of his jeans pocket, and cut the duct tape that bound Sam's arms to the chair. Sam seemed to collapse in on himself as Dean freed his legs. "Cold."

"OK." Dean grabbed his shoulders, sat him a little more upright, and began rubbing his hands vigorously up and down Sam's arms. "What else is going on? Do you hurt anywhere?"

Sam seemed to focus on him. "Dean," he said with a smile.

"That's me, buddy. I've been looking for you."

Sam began crying. "He said you were dead."

"He was a damn liar," Dean said, although "damn" may not have been the actual word he used. "And he's gone now. Back to Hell where he belongs. Wait."

He pulled himself away long enough to dig down into the exorcism bag for a chain with a pendant. By the time he turned around, Sam was doubled over. "Sit up just a little, Sam. Let me just put this over your head. That'll keep that from happening again. We'll get that tattooed on you, it'll never happen again. Never."

Sam looked up, his eyes still streaming with tears. "I did – I did things – "

"No you didn't. Andrealphus did."

"My hands. My teeth."

"But not your will. Remember that."

"Never be warm again."

"Yes, you will. Damn, I left my jacket in the car. Sam, can you – "

"I believe," Castiel said, and Dean jumped, "that this is more a psychological or spiritual reaction than physical. The isolation from – " he closed his eyes, drew a breath – "human or spiritual connection." He winced a little. "Hard for humans to bear."

Dean, rubbing Sam's arms again, focused on Castiel. "What's going on with you?"

"Nothing." He pulled off his trench coat and handed it to Dean. "Not so much the coat, as the act of you giving it to him, will reaffirm that he is again in a realm of warmth, where beings care."

"Thanks, man." Dean didn't have time to be startled. He turned to drape the coat over Sam's shoulders and back. "I do care about you, Sam. Lots of people do. You're gonna be – "

Castiel cried out and collapsed. Dean shot an astonished look back and forth between his shivering brother and the demon on his hands and knees. "Dude, what the hell?"

Castiel looked at him, his face seeming paralyzed, his eyes flickering from human to black and back again. You'd think that'd be cool, Dean thought later, but it was just kind of revolting.

Castiel made it to his feet. He said coldly, "You still owe me the rest of our deal. I'll call you." Then he was across the room by the door, flung the door open, and left like he was escaping.

"Guess he can't go through walls," Dean mumbled, and looked back at Sam.

"Cold," Sam said, shivering.

Then one corner of his mouth lifted, the tiniest smile, but recognizably Sam's. "Sorry. Keep saying that."

"That's OK. You can keep saying it all you want. It's just great to hear you say anything. Try rubbing your chest. Man, we gotta get rid of that shirt. Get you some jeans, some real shirts – "

"One or two." Sam was earnest. "Don't think I'll live that long."

Fear shot through Dean. "Bull. You're gonna live a good long time. I didn't spend six months looking for you to lose you now."

"Six months? It's been six months?"

Dean nodded, and Sam shook his head in wonderment. "Felt like sixty years."

Dean sighed, rubbing Sam's arms, and Sam took a breath. "Shoulda known. You're not old."

"Still older than you, Sammy. I've got the Impala right outside. Remember the Impala?"

Sam nodded, with the smile of a toddler anticipating something.

"Think you can stand up?"

He was shaky, and he had to lean on Dean, but they made it out to the car.

.

"I would remind you, Hex," Castiel said, "that we are at war."

Hex, who had just slammed his fist into the wall of Castiel's quietly elegant home office, turned with a disgusted look. He was in a large meatsuit, with a forehead overhanging his eyes and a jaw jutting out beneath his lips. "Don't condescend to me. Consigliere." He said the word with contempt. "I've fought battles with Terrestrial scum while you were sitting in your mansion playing adviser."

"No condescension was meant," Castiel said calmly. The cooler he remained in the face of Hex's rage and disrespect, the more out of control Hex got, and Castiel knew that. "I just wonder why you don't think that one of our enemies killed Mr. Vincent. It would be the logical conclusion."

"They put 'Traitor to the Morning Star' on the wall. Would a Terrestrial do that?"

Castiel looked thoughtful, and Hex answered himself. "No. They'd put 'Earth Is For Enjoyment' or 'No Loyalist Dictator' or 'If You Like Hell, Go Back There' or one of their other blasphemous slogans. 'Traitor to the Morning Star' is a deliberate attempt to slander Mr. Vincent to his fellow Loyalists. And you know who did it."

"We don't – " Castiel began, and Hex barreled on, "Edward always resented it that Mr. Vincent assumed the capo's meatsuit, while he himself was just the heir apparent. And he's not just the heir now, is he? He's taken over Mr. Vincent's mantle. And he thinks he'll keep it? Not for long, he won't."

He stormed toward the door and Castiel called, "Just hold off until I've spoken to Edward. I'll find out – "

"This is no time for words." Hex flung the door open and slammed it shut behind him.

Castiel looked at the fist-sized hole in the wall and smiled, just a little.

.

"It's really important." Dean was at the apartment in San Bernardino, talking to Sam, who sat crouched on an unmade sofa bed, hands around his knees, staring at the floor.

Sam shook his head. "People die in hospitals."

"Not you. We're just going to check and see if you got a concussion yesterday, when you cracked your head on the floor."

Sam looked up at Dean. "What if there's a demon?"

"There won't be. Even if there is, you just keep that pendant in your pocket. They won't take off your pants for a head X-ray. That symbol is really effective protection. I've been dealing with demons for six months, they never even tried to possess me. I've got it tattooed on me."

Sam's voice was quiet. "I want a tattoo too."

"OK. OK, that's progress, Sam. Yesterday you wouldn't leave the apartment for anything. But I really want to make sure you haven't got a slow bleed or something first, OK? Then we'll get you a good permanent tattoo. You'll never have to be afraid – "

There was a knock on the door. Both Winchesters froze.

"Demon." Sam's eyes were wide, his voice almost soundless.

"Or cops," Dean said quietly, then yelled, "Who is it?"

"Castiel."

Dean started for the door; stopped; pulled the devil's trap gun out of his ankle holster and held it down by his side as he opened the door with his left hand. "Hey," he said in greeting, looking over Castiel's shoulder into the hall.

"I'm alone. May I come in?"

"Yeah." Dean stood aside, putting the gun in his waistband. "No offense."

"None taken. We can't be trusted. l came to tell you your assignment for tonight. I don't trust telephones for these communications."

"Tonight?" Dean said in disbelief, but Castiel was distracted by Sam, who suddenly stood and turned. He picked Castiel's neatly folded coat up from a chair and took two steps, extending it to him.

"Thank you," Sam said. "I kept it on all night. It helped the cold a lot."

Castiel looked a little startled. "You're welcome." He closed his eyes, swallowed. "I only gave it to you – the only reason – "

He began doubling over. Sam's long arms shot out, dropping the coat and grabbing Castiel's shoulders. "You're hurt." He looked with anxiety at Dean. "He's hurt."

"Seems like it." Dean's voice sounded grim. "Castiel, you and me are going to step out in the hall. Sam, we won't leave you, we'll be right outside the door. Tell you what, look up hospitals and tattoo parlors near here. We'll be right back in."

Sam nodded, then scooped the coat off the floor and gave it to Dean. "Tell him to put this on. Maybe it can help him too."

Castiel leaned against the wall in the hallway as Dean shut the door. "OK, you're going to tell me what's going on with these attacks."

"It is of no import."

"The hell you say. Look, if I'm going to go running around the demon-Mafia underworld, I need someone at my back who isn't flat on the floor. What's the deal?"

"It is a side effect of associating with humans. It's why we avoid it, unless we're victimizing them."

"Just being around humans knocks you down, unless you knock us down first?"

Castiel took his coat from Dean and put it on, and it did seem to help. He straightened and looked at Dean with his usual impassive expression. "Do you know about the origin of demons?"

"Aren't they fallen angels?"

"Only a few. The vast majority of us used to be humans, human souls."

"You're kidding."

"When a human soul goes to Hell, it is tortured remorselessly. In ways – in ways you can imagine, and in ways you cannot." Castiel was shifting his gaze. "We don't talk about it. You are reminded constantly of how much time has passed, and what a small fraction of time that is, compared to the eternity you will be tortured. Time moves differently in Hell – ten years there is only about a month here."

Dean nodded. "Andrealphus must've carried some of that feeling with him. Right after he was exorcised, Sam felt like he was in his late 80s."

"Indeed. Well, as you can imagine, a human soul breaks down quickly under that treatment. Particularly given the fact that souls who end up in Hell tend to be self-involved and spiritually weak to begin with. Eventually nothing is left of that soul but hatred, rage, and fear. It becomes demonic. It is then assigned to a lowly position in Hell, sent to Earth to make war on humans, or – " he shrugged – "kept by the torturers because it amuses them."

"OK – but – man – that's – "

"Don't worry." Castiel's eyes were slightly amused. "It is a very small percentage of humanity that goes to Hell. The worst of the worst, and weaklings who sold their souls. The rest of you – I don't know exactly what happens, if there is further correction or, or education – but it's not in Hell."

"OK. Don't be Mengele, don't sell my soul. Got it. But what does this have to do with you acting like you've been sucker-punched?"

Castiel took a breath. "If we associate with humans, in a non-predatory way, we begin to remember what it was like. What it was like to care, to have someone care about us. That, the sensation of that loss – we experience that as pain. It's like an extension of the torture."

"So there's no escape? Even on Earth?"

"There are three methods of escaping Hell's influence that I know of, but we won't discuss impossibilities. I shouldn't even be telling you this." Castiel sighed a little. "I was always weak. The torturers probably released me to Earth too soon. I seem to have developed a – fondness, a loyalty, for my fellow Terrestrialist demons. Edward said something the other day about how much he wanted to wipe out Terrestrials, and I felt a twinge of concern for them. I had to tell Mr. Vincent that I was thinking hard about something else. And if I can feel that way about demons, imagine what it's like being around humans who are as full of warmth, of altruism, as you and your brother." He shook his head. "Very weak."

"Or very strong. Even Hell couldn't break down all your humanity."

"Don't ever let anyone hear you say that. We need to discuss your next assignment."

"We do. But it's not going to be tonight. You saw Sam in there, he's like a scared six-year-old. I can't leave him alone. And, you know, that's an improvement. Last night he just shivered until he fell asleep, then he'd sleep for an hour and wake up screaming. And that's another reason I can't do a job tonight, my nerves are shredded and I've had no real sleep. If I try to do anything involving fast reflexes, I'm dead. And my target's alive."

"I see the problem."

"One thing, though." Dean looked up and down the hall. "Sam told me about some of the things Andrealphus did. He couldn't go into details without throwing up, but I got the gist. And I think, when it comes to demons, I think I can be a killer."

"Good."

"Present company excepted."

"Thank you."

"I think I've got Sam persuaded to get to a hospital, I'm worried about the way Andrealphus slammed his head. Then if he can handle that much exposure to the outside world without freaking out, we'll get the anti-possession symbol tattoed on him. Tomorrow I've got to get him some new clothes – he's wearing mine, and it's not a good fit. I don't even know what to do with Andrealphus' clothes. I'd donate them, but I'm afraid that some poor homeless person might pick up some of the demonic spiritual residue."

"Quite right. Give them to me, I'll incinerate them. Do you require money for Sam's medical expenses, or the other things?" Castiel held up a hand. "I only ask because I want your mind clear and focused."

"Not because you care, right. You know – "

Dean's eyes widened suddenly, and he smiled. "No. I don't need money. I've got plenty of it, and I don't have to worry about saving it to pay demons for information anymore. I can spend it on Sam. Hell." He laughed breathlessly. "Once our little contract is done, Sam and I can maybe go back to living a normal life. I'd given up."

He focused on Cas. "I owe you. This isn't just, you did your part of the contract so I'll do mine. I owe you for saving Sam's life."

"Well. I'm glad you feel that way. Give me Andrealphus' clothes, I'll be on my way, and we'll meet tomorrow at three p.m. at the Methodist Church in Glendora."

Dean's mouth quirked. "You're kidding."

Cas looked rueful. "It will not be comfortable, but that's why it's a good meeting place. I usually meet my Terrestrialist contacts in places of worship, and it's difficult, but no Loyalist has ever happened in."

"And Glendora because it's about halfway between San Berdoo and Bel Air?"

"Exactly."

"OK. Wait a minute."

Dean ducked back into the apartment, leaving the door open. Sam looked up from Dean's laptop, his face pinched with anxiety. "I found a hospital and a tattoo parlor. But somebody killed some children in Missouri."

"Oh, man. Sorry I took you away from the NASA website. Go back to that, OK?"

"That won't help them. Or their parents or brothers and sisters."

"No. But there's nothing you can do, Sammy. Except, you know, I guess, pray. Pray for the kids and the survivors."

"And, I know. Pray to try and help people. I know a lot about evil now, and maybe I ask how I can use that to fight against evil and maybe save other children someday."

"Good man. Great idea. Then back to the NASA website. And tomorrow we'll get you some books. What do you feel like reading?"

Sam pondered for a moment, then broke into a shy hopeful smile. "Hardy Boys."

"Hardy Boys it is. Be right back, and we'll head for the hospital."

Dean grabbed a paper bag that was sitting on the floor by the door, stepped into the hall, and closed the door.

Castiel took the bag of Andrealphus' clothes and looked at it. It went up like flash paper, gold chains included, and Dean jumped back. A few black ashes floated to the floor.

"Holy – "

Castiel smiled. "I have a talent for fire."

"Apparently."

"Your brother has great spiritual strength. He must have given Andrealphus a great deal of trouble."

"I bet he did. Hey. The three ways that a demon can escape Hell's influence – what are they?"

"I've told you more than I should. Tomorrow, three p.m."

"Methodist Church in Glendora, right."

Castiel walked down the hall toward the staircase. Dean opened the door, but looked after him. He called, "I'm gonna keep asking, you know!"

As he closed the door behind him, Sam asked, "Who is he?"

Dean really didn't think that Sam was ready to learn that Dean had interrupted a life of crime to conspire with a demon. "He's a guy who knows a lot about demons. He tricked some demons into trapping Andrealphus, so I could do the exorcism."

"You like him."

"Well, yeah, Sammy, he saved your life."

"No, I mean – " Sam's smile looked mischievous – "you like him."

"I'm gonna wash up before we hit the hospital. You." Dean pointed at the laptop. "Look at your Mars pictures."

.

Edward Vincent ran into the emergency room entrance, screaming behind closed lips. He had no jacket or tie, his shirt was open, and blood was running down his chest. As a nurse and a security guard both leaped to their feet, Edward lunged over the nurse's counter, making panicked animal sounds behind his still-closed mouth, and grabbed feverishly for a letter opener.

The security guard grabbed his arms and pulled him back. The letter opener went flying and Edward waved his hand, slamming the guard into a wall as Hex ran in with a gun. The nurse dove under the desk.

Edward waved his hand at Hex. Hex merely staggered, but it gave Edward time enough to vault the counter and run through a door behind the desk. Hex swore and followed him. The nurse waited a moment and, hearing nothing else, emerged, stabbed a button for Security, then ran to the injured guard.

Thank God the operation had just begun. Edward slammed the OR doors open and ran toward the table. He was pulled away from it as Hex ran in and waved his hand, at the same time saying, "Oculi mortui caeci sunt."

Edward turned and waved his hand at Hex. In the moment that bought him, he wrenched the scalpel out of the surgeon's hand and stabbed himself in the mouth.

Hex shot. The bullet went straight through Edward and struck a nurse, who collapsed onto the patient's legs. People screamed and hit the floor, so none of them saw the orange light that flashed in Edward's eyes as he died.

The anesthesiologist threw himself over both patient and nurse. The surgeon turned with his hands up. "Please. We're doing a medical procedure here. None of us – "

"Take off the mask," Hex demanded.

The surgeon hesitated, then pulled it off. Even though the cap hid his full head of silver hair, Hex could see the surgeon's strong features and piercing gray eyes.

"You're a good-looking fellow, aren't you?" he said, and shot.

The surgeon slammed back against the operating table and crashed to the floor, bringing down a tray of instruments. The anesthesiologist stayed curled over the patient and nurse, his arms flung over his head, making sounds in his throat.

A security guard ran in, gun drawn. Hex shot first, and the guard dropped.

Hex's jaw gaped and a fast-moving black cloud roared out of his mouth, pouring itself down the throat of the surgeon, whose fine eyes were unseeing.

When the second and third security guards ran in, there were two dead bodies on the floor and one on the table; the anesthesiologist was desperately trying to stabilize the patient; the injured security guard was fighting to stay conscious; the others in the room were just pulling themselves off the floor; and the surgeon was nowhere to be found.


	4. Chapter 4

Dean had just put two sandwiches on the table, and Sam had put two salads, when Dean's phone rang. He checked it, saw that it was a blocked number, and answered, "Yeah?"

"Where are you?" Castiel asked.

"At home having lunch. Last night we found out that Sam's head is OK, and he got the tattoo. This afternoon he has some books and he's wearing clothes that fit."

"You need to meet me in the chapel of Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital as soon as possible."

Dean blinked. "Why?"

"Watch the news."

"The news? What channel?"

"Any channel." Castiel disconnected.

"Well, that can't be good." Dean pocketed the phone, looked at Sam. "Sam, Castiel just called and needs me to watch the news. Sounds like something bad has happened. Maybe you want to put your earphones on, listen to some music."

Sam glanced at the earphones on a desk beside the laptop, then shook his head. "I need to – start dealing with bad stuff sometime. There's so much bad stuff."

"Yeah, but there's no need to rush yourself. It's only been about forty-eight hours."

Sam just pointed at the TV, and Dean turned it on. That was how they learned about senseless violence at the hospital that had somehow made its way into an operating room; a security guard with a concussion, another in critical condition with a gunshot wound; a murdered nurse; two unidentified men dead, one of a gunshot wound and one of yet-unknown causes; and a missing surgeon.

Dean watched for fifteen minutes, long enough to get as much as anyone knew at that time. When he turned it off, his face was cold, his eyes very focused.

But then he turned to Sam and his expression softened. "Sam? You OK?"

Sam's eyes were wide, and he hadn't eaten a bite of his lunch, but he was sitting up straight and he nodded.

"Castiel wants me to meet him and talk about this."

"Demons?"

"I assume, since it's him who's calling. But we're not gonna go up against them right now, I think he just wants to talk about it."

"You're going to help."

Dean looked a little despairing. "Not sure we can help much, but maybe we can prevent something else. But I won't go if you can't handle being alone."

"No. Go. Right now, this is how I can help. I can take care of myself, so you don't have other stuff to worry about."

Dean smiled at him. He pulled a long, locked box off the floor of the closet, wrested the angel blade out of it, and handed it to Sam. "Keep this. Castiel says it'll kill a demon. It'll help you feel safer."

Sam nodded gravely. Dean pulled the angel-blade gun out of the box, checked it, put it in the back of his waistband, put on the ankle holster with the devil's-trap gun, and pulled on his jacket. Sam's breath sped up a little, but he stayed calm.

"Back soon," Dean said, opening the door.

"Don't let anything happen to you," Sam blurted.

"Trust me. My top priority," and Dean was out the door.

Sam shook his head. "No it's not," he murmured.

.

There was crime-scene tape at the emergency room entrance – where an ambulance would go Dean couldn't tell, maybe they were being rerouted – and crowds of police officers, people in suits who were apparently detectives, reporters, and gawkers around both the ER and the main entrance. The main entrance was open, and a cry of despair beyond the sliding door distracted him so that he was halfway through a metal detector before he realized it. Nothing happened, though, and he continued through, looking for the source of the cry.

A big middle-aged man was sitting on a sofa, crying loudly, his face uncovered, uncaring about any onlookers. A younger man sat next to him, one arm around him, tears streaming down his own face. A third man, apparently a hospital chaplain, sat in a chair facing the middle-aged man, leaning toward him.

Dean looked away. A muscle in his jaw twitched.

He passed by two men talking in murmurs, a woman sitting on a couch talking on a cell phone, and a uniformed cop taking notes as he talked to one of the receptionists, and followed the signs to the chapel.

Castiel was the only one there, to his surprise. Maybe it was just too soon to go there – people were still talking to cops, clinging to each other, answering phones, calling loved ones with reassurances.

Light flooded into the room through a big stained-glass window, a simple altar in front of that. Rows of light but sturdy chairs with padded seats faced the window.

Castiel was sitting in the back row, and Dean dropped into the chair next to him. "You fritzed the metal detector?"

"And the camera in this chapel, yes. For my own purposes, I didn't want you to become a known associate of organized crime."

"Thanks. What the hell happened?"

"I'm not completely sure myself. I'm piecing together information from both demonic and police sources."

"Great. I don't even want to know whether the police department mole is a demon or a mobster."

"A clerical employee with access to reports as they come in. She needs money, and consoles herself that giving information to organized crime isn't the same as killing anyone."

"OK. And your sources say – "

"Hex abducted Edward Vincent and magically sealed his lips so that he couldn't escape the meatsuit. There's a brand which, if applied to the skin, will do the same thing, but sometimes the lip-sealing spell is easier."

"Hex is the powerful demon who does the unspeakable rites?"

"Yes. He was convinced that Edward was responsible for the death of Mr. Vincent. I believe that he tortured Edward. When Edward ran into the hospital his shirt was open and there were injuries to his chest."

"What the hell did Hex expect Edward to tell him, with his lips sealed shut?"

"My assumption is that he was not torturing Edward for information, but as punishment. Hex took great pride in his close association with Mr. Vincent, and was enraged at his death."

Dean drew in a deep breath. "But obviously Edward escaped."

"I assume he was being held nearby and just ran here as the nearest open building. An emergency room nurse said he grabbed a letter opener just as Hex followed him in, but a security guard jarred it out of his hand."

"He was trying to get his lips open so he could escape the body."

Castiel nodded. "He next appeared in an operating room. Those aren't easily accessible, of course, but both Edward and Hex are powerful demons. Hex blinded the cameras as he followed Edward in, but we have witness accounts. Edward grabbed a scalpel and began to cut his lips open. Hex shot him with an angel-blade bullet. It killed Edward, went through him, and killed a nurse instantly. After that, most of the witnesses threw themselves onto the floor, feigning death, or onto each other protectively, so we have no visual accounting. But the anesthesiologist heard – and this has been confirmed by others – the surgeon attempting to reason with Hex. Hex told him to take his mask off and said something like 'You're a good-looking fellow.' Then there was a gunshot."

"He wanted to possess the surgeon. That's why they can't find him."

Castiel nodded. "A security guard came in, and Hex shot him. I believe that then he possessed the surgeon – who was certainly dead or moments from death, having been shot point-blank with an angel-blade bullet – and escaped before anyone else arrived.

"Speculation among humans is that there was somehow a second attacker who shot Hex – the empty meatsuit was in the operating room, of course – took the surgeon hostage, and left with him. At some point, they will discover evidence that there is no new bullet in Hex's former body and that the surgeon was struck. I don't know what they'll make of that."

"So." Dean stared straight ahead with a look that should have shattered the stained-glass window. "A surgeon, an OR nurse, and maybe a security guard are all dead because I killed Vincent."

"You are not responsible for Hex's actions."

"Says the demon."

"Say the facts. Hex made a series of infuriated choices that resulted in mass violence in a human setting. None of those actions was forced on him by Mr. Vincent's death."

Dean shook his head, but said, "OK. I'll deal with my crap later. How do we kill Hex?"

"We don't. Not yet. My goal was to start an internecine war among the Loyalists, and Hex has obligingly begun that. Almost certainly, some ally of Edward's will make an attempt to kill Hex, and will either succeed or Hex will kill him."

"I don't want any more humans dying because of a demon civil war."

"I understand that. But you also didn't want to be a killer, and Hex has already killed one of the demons I wanted you to kill. You should understand – "

He stopped, thinking about something. "Yes. Yes, this is an assignment that will meet with your approval. My aide Hannah had a report that Hex has been seen entering the home of a demonic sorceress named Malazir, and that she cast a protective spell on him. Clearly he's aware that he has made enemies, and clearly he's found an ally."

"We kill Malazir, and Hex will go after whoever he thinks killed her."

"I will arrange a secret meeting with Hex, tell him that there's obviously a traitor in our ranks, and aim him at an important target. I will devise a plan with him that keeps humans at a safe remove. This insane recklessness draws too much attention to us."

"What does Malazir get out of protecting Hex?"

"She may be wanting to seize leadership of the Loyalists, with both of the Vincents gone. It would be a mistake on her part. She's very good at her current job, but she'd quickly become bored with the mundanity of the civil war, and certainly of the legitimate business."

"What's her current job?"

"She's in charge of attempting to raise Lucifer from his cage in Hell. She has made enough progress that she's been able, on a few occasions, to communicate with our Lord. This is why you should appreciate this assignment. If she should succeed in her goal, the human toll will be in the thousands, if not the millions."

"OK. I'll do it. If you'll keep Hex from killing any more humans while he's slashing at everyone in sight."

"I will do my best."

"There's gonna be a real problem with access, though. If a demon like Hex goes to her for protection, she's going to be damn hard to get to."

Castiel outright smiled. "Not for you."

.

"Yes, but he's my loose cannon," Malazir said absently.

She was looking out the window of her splendid Hidden Hills home. Although her neighbors had plenty of money, they all struggled against Southern California's desert climate to keep their lawns green or, like good citizens, xeriscaped their grounds. Malazir's bluegrass lawn, however, was somehow always lush and green. Her neighbors would have asked her about it, but she was seldom seen. And if one of them did run across her, she was cold and supercilious, as if she considered them lower beings.

"Hex is no one's loose cannon," Parcell argued. "He followed Mr. Vincent's orders only because he wanted to. It actually wouldn't surprise me if he'd killed Mr. Vincent himself in a fit of temper, and then killed Edward to make it look like – Malazir. I understand that you're my superior and you can ignore my counsel, but what is the point in your having an aide if you won't listen to me?"

"I'm listening," Malazir said, smiling. "I don't need my eyes to listen."

Parcell, a thin pale demon with a deceptively innocent look, took a step so that he could see out the same window. Then, behind Malazir's back, he made a disgusted face.

A male human in a short-sleeved olive drab shirt and blue jeans was planting some flowers beside a low stone wall in front of the house. He was trim and muscular, the shirt stretched a little tight over his arms and chest. The planting seemed to involve a lot of crouching and bending.

"Malazir – "

"I'm a little surprised that you object, Parcell. If Hex helps me take over leadership of the Loyalists, you are the obvious choice to lead the efforts to raise Lucifer. You could join the Council, have some of that power I know you crave."

"Yes – "

"But?" Malazir flashed a look at Parcell, then looked back at the lawn-care guy, who was standing and stretching. He was wearing a belt with a couple of capacious pockets over each hip, and he put a hand trowel in one of those.

Parcell hesitated. "I can't help but wonder if it isn't a waste of your gifts. Mr. Vincent was the leader of both the Sucro business and the war against the Terrestrials, but, as you know, Edward was actually the general who handled ninety percent of the war effort. How will you – "

"I'll be in charge of the war effort," Malazir said, watching the lawn-care guy shoulder a 40-pound bag of mulch and carry it to the flower bed. "You'll be my lieutenant in charge of raising Lucifer. I'll get someone else to be my lieutenant in charge of the business – perhaps Sarah Hughes. Perhaps Castiel, he's good at boring things. Hex will be in charge of my security and of certain personal missions for me. You'll scarcely need to be bothered with him."

Parcell, considering it, raised his eyebrows as though he were convinced and hadn't expected to be. "That's a very good plan."

"Thank you for your approval," Malazir said dryly. She looked back out the window. "Now go."

Parcell took a couple of steps away, then stopped. "Ah – Malazir. Seeing that our two main leaders have just been killed, one of them in a way that drew enormous human attention, do you think that now is the time for – to – "

He seemed to expect rage, but she just smiled as gave a tiny, but visible, wriggle. "I think that now is the exact time. I could use the focus and the sense of power. And don't worry about human attention. Tonight his image will appear on security cameras ten miles from here. That's where they'll focus their search. And they'll never find what's left of his body." She looked the human over thoroughly. "I think I'll keep this one for a few days."

"You think of everything, Malazir."

"That's why you're just an aide." She flicked her hand at him in dismissal.

Her rudeness didn't bother Parcell. For one thing, he was used to it. For another, he was contemplating a win-win situation as he stepped out the door and crossed the lawn to his car. If Malazir's plan worked, he'd be in charge of raising Lucifer and would, as Malazir had said, join the Council. If Malazir overreached and was destroyed – well, that left more room at the top, didn't it?

Parcell looked across the lawn as he started to get into the car. The lawn guy had taken off his cap and was wiping sweat off of his forehead with his sinewy forearm. He had a profile that a movie star would kill for. That was probably why he was in L.A., hoping to be an actor, doing lawn care until he got his big break. With looks like that, he might have actually succeeded, though now no one would ever know.

The demon grinned at the thought of what awaited the human in the house, and drove away just as Malazir appeared in the doorway.

She was wearing a long and long-sleeved black dress with plenty of décolletage. The color and sleeves would have been logical elsewhere in the country on March 6th; they seemed out of place in Los Angeles' 75 degrees, but the dress was seductive nonetheless. She had fluffed her blonde hair before she stepped outside. She began walking toward the human, and he gave her a smile and wave. He had a great, boyish grin.

"Whose idea was the flowers?" she asked as she reached him.

He looked disconcerted. "Wasn't it yours? My boss said something about some color in front of the tan stones. Crap, I hope I haven't planted these at the wrong house."

She smiled and gave a one-shoulder shrug. "I'll pay for them. That wall could use some color."

"And these aren't even at their peak blooming time yet. You're gonna love what they look like in a month or so."

Quietly, "They'll remind me of you."

He laughed. "Yeah, these flowers will remind you of the sweaty guy."

"Come on inside. Have a drink and cool down."

"Thanks, but we're not supposed to drink on the job. And even if we could, you know, alcohol is real dehydrating."

"Some water then. Or lemonade with ice?"

The man closed his eyes as if he could already taste it. "That sounds. Really good."

"Well, come on in, then." And as they began to walk toward the door, "Are you an actor? You look like one."

"Thanks, you know, people say that sometimes, but I like doing this. I'm gonna have my own company someday."

"I'll bet you will," she said in an admiring tone, going up the two steps to the doorway. "Where do you come from originally?"

The human followed her into the house. He began speaking just before he crossed the threshold and ended as he closed the door behind him with the side of his hand. "Texas. We've had drought there too. Oculi mortui caeci sunt. So California's kinda the same thing."

Malazir turned. "What did you say?"

Dean pulled the angel-bullet gun out of a belt pouch and shot her.

It caught her in the gut, and she slammed backward, her hair flying, and crashed into a sofa. She collapsed to the floor, her back propped against the couch, her legs stretched in front of her. She stared at Dean in rage and disbelief.

Unnerved, Dean aimed the gun again.

The she gave a short enraged scream and orange light flashed in her eyes, illuminating the bones of her skull. Her unoccupied body slumped to the side.

Dean let out a long, slow exhale between pursed lips. Keeping hold of the gun, he looked around. He'd thought that Hex might somehow sense the murder and turn up. He wasn't crazy about the idea of tackling two demons in five minutes, but whether Castiel wanted Hex dead or not, Dean was going to kill that son of a bitch someday.

It wasn't going to be today, though; that became obvious after a few minutes. He re-pocketed the gun, put on a work glove and opened the door with his gloved hand, and turned on the porch to look back inside. "Thanks again!"

He closed the door and went back over to the flower bed. Every nerve in him was screaming to get out, but he finished putting the mulch down on the flower bed before he left. He tossed the partly empty mulch bag into the back of the old pickup truck he'd stolen and drove away.

He took the 134/210 to Arcadia and parked the truck in the mass of cars at Santa Anita Mall. The Impala was nearby. He transferred the mulch bag to the trunk of the Impala to be disposed of later.

He got back on the 210 and headed for San Bernardino, where was Sam was reading a Hardy Boys book and deciding where they should go for dinner.

.

"I'm not afraid to speak openly to you, Castiel," Hannah said. "But as you know, I said the same thing even to Mr. Vincent. Although more politely."

"I can't even imagine your being impolite, Hannah," Castiel said. He negotiated a sharp curve in the road before he said, "But you're right, you can be more blunt with me, because I agree with you. The war with the Terrestrials wastes demonic resources. On both sides. Even with Terrestrial weakness, we could hurt humans much more – " he paused and took a breath – "by combining our forces."

"And now the thing has happened that I was always afraid of. Our own forces are killing each other for power in the anti-Terrestrial army. Why bother? It's not like Terrestrials would challenge any of us for leadership of Lucifer's army. They're too busy drinking and sleeping and wallowing."

Castiel smiled tightly, changed the subject. "Do you really think that the angel-blade bullets came from Mr. Vincent's own armory?"

"I don't see how else someone would get them. They're rare. Most of them have been issued to Revard, who's in charge of weaponry, and he accounted for every bullet after Mr. Vincent's death. But we know that Vulcan made them for Mr. Vincent personally, and for all we know, perhaps Mr. Vincent gave Hex access to the personal armory."

"Of course, he gave me such access too."

"I thought of that," Hannah said coolly, "but I don't see what you gain by Mr. Vincent's death. Unless you're trying to persuade everyone else that you could replace Mr. Vincent and not mentioning it to me. But I don't think you would."

"I wouldn't even think of a venture like that without consulting you. But I prefer a role as an adviser or negotiator, in any case. Still, what would Hex gain from Mr. Vincent's death?"

"Hex doesn't need a logical reason to kill. It's his first or second solution for everything. Parcell, Malazir's aide, thinks that Hex killed Mr. Vincent in a fit of temper, and then killed Edward so he could claim that Edward did it."

Castiel looked dubious. "If Hex did somehow get bullets from Mr. Vincent's personal armory, that would be a premeditated fit of temper."

"Exactly. I think Hex conspired with Malazir to kill our leaders so that she can take over the Loyalists. Parcell agreed that it would be like her."

"Such a loyal aide," Cas said, and Hannah chuckled. "If that's the case, we should try to anticipate who Malazir and Hex would see as a threat and give them some warning."

"Well, that's obvious," Hannah said. "You. I've always worried about your enjoyment of driving around by yourself, and now it's not just risky, it's plainly dangerous. Lester's a good driver and a reasonably good fighter, and I wish you'd take advantage of that."

Hannah wasn't the first to raise this issue with him, and he was usually able to brush it off as his own fondness for being alone. He couldn't very well tell anyone about his meetings with Terrestrial contacts, and now Dean. He hadn't realized that his own plan to foment chaos among Loyalist leadership might end up restricting him, but of course he had to pretend that there might be a threat to him.

"You're right," he simply said. "I supposed I can reduce my time alone during the current crisis."

"Thank you," Hannah said. "That makes me feel – that is, I think that's a logical choice."

Castiel smiled a little. "Did Mrs. Vincent approve of my obituary?"

"With a few minor changes, yes. She was very grateful for the suggestion of 'private services.' Mr. Vincent's host had been decidedly Catholic, and he kept up the front by contributing money to the church, but it never occurred to him that if he were destroyed, a church service would be almost mandatory. Everyone would have had to send flowers, as at a genuine Mafia funeral. And with Edward gone, too – Mrs. Vincent was dreading the prospect of sitting in a church for a couple of hours, on top of having to pretend to be grief-stricken at the loss of her husband and son. So we're putting out the word that Mrs. Vincent is too devastated to appear in public, the services will be private, and your long admiring obituaries of both leaders will appear several times in the newspapers and online."

"I would also suggest that, in a month or so, she make a substantial contribution to a hospital or a children's charity in the names of both Mr. Vincent and Edward."

Hannah raised her eyebrows, nodded. "That's a good idea. It's amazing how much you can think like a human."

"Mr. Vincent found it a useful gift," Castiel said easily. "Will Mrs. Vincent be there when we arrive?"

"No. She left this morning for Tahiti."

"How Terrestrialist of her."

Hannah didn't see the humor. "Hm," she said disapprovingly. "But that reminds me of something I wanted to discuss with you. If it's all right with you, I'd like to move the SavorStop surveillance system to your house. Mrs. Vincent has no interest in it, and is happy to have it moved when she won't be there to be inconvenienced."

SavorStops were convenience stores owned by Sucro through a shell company. After the conflicts between Loyalists and Terrestrials had turned into a full-blown war, Mr. Vincent had ordered that the SavorStops in Los Angeles be remodeled in a way that would lure Terrestrials. They now featured bright cheerful colors, popcorn machines and hot-dog roller grills that filled the stores with delicious smells, salty snack displays next to long bins where all kinds of soft drink bottles were nestled in crushed ice, and a free chocolate bar with any purchase of $20 or more. There were also, in each store, one or two alcoves with a table and well padded chairs, which were closely watched by security cameras. It had been Vincent's idea to make the stores alluring to Terrestrials as meeting places, and Castiel had contributed strongly to the remodeling. Of course, he'd also warned his Terrestrial contacts about it, and they'd found the SavorStop alcoves useful once to twice, passing false information to Loyalists while pretending to have meetings there.

The security cameras that watched the alcoves were a completely different system than the stores' other security cameras. Several Loyalists who knew the difference between humans arranging a tryst and demons arranging a meeting kept watch on the monitors, which were set up in Mr. Vincent's home.

Castiel, however, was pleased to have the setup moved to his home, where he'd have the chance to alter or destroy any tapes that accidentally revealed too much about Terrestrials. He and Hannah were discussing where to put the equipment and how to transport it to Bel Air when he pulled into the Vincents' wide circular driveway.

The manservant who admitted them was a demon. He greeted Castiel respectfully, saying that Mrs. Vincent had told him to expect them, and showed them into Mr. Vincent's home office.

Castiel locked the door. He pressed a hidden switch, and a bookcase moved to one side, revealing a large wall safe, about four feet by five. The safe had been set up by Vincent the capo long before he'd been possessed, but of course the demon who'd possessed him had been able to change who had access to the safe. Castiel punched in a code on a keypad and pressed his thumb to a small metal plate, and there was a quiet electronic beep. Castiel pushed down on a handle and swung open the door.

He and Hannah both ignored the human-killing guns, knives, and drugs. Their eyes went straight to two sets of two deep brackets on the wall. One of the brackets held a Hell-treated donkey jawbone like the one he'd given Dean. The other, of course, was empty.

Hannah sucked in a breath. "Was there a tempered jawbone in that bracket?"

"There was. Yes."

Hannah knelt and opened the long velvet-lined cases that held the angel blades. Castiel was sorry that Lester hadn't come up with the idea to search Mr. Vincent's armory; Lester could have been counted on to flip open the top case, see an angel blade, and assume that all the rest were there. Hannah went through the stack, opening each case and laying it aside, until she opened the bottom one and found it empty. "An angel blade is gone, too."

"What about the bullets?"

Hannah, still kneeling, turned to a small case on the floor of the safe. It contained six smaller boxes; each box had a lining with indentations where six of the precious bullets rested. It took her only seconds to find the empty box at the bottom of the case.

She let out a long hiss and sat back, shaking her head. "Six angel bullets are missing. Six."

"Actually – only three," Castiel said. "We know that three of them went into Mr. Vincent, and went through Edward and the surgeon Hex is now possessing."

"And there was a bullet hole in the window of Mr. Vincent's office, although neither we nor the police have found the bullet yet. That means Hex is down to two."

"And Hex will be rash in his use of them. I don't know whether – "

Castiel's phone rang. He pulled it from his jacket pocket, looked at it, gave Hannah a nod and stepped away from the safe as he took the call.

She put the bullet boxes and angel-blade cases back in place as Castiel said, "Speak. – Parcell, slow down, I can't understand – " and then listened for a full minute, asking one-syllable questions in a sharp voice.

Then he said, "Yes, your safety is important. The safety of all of us is important. If you feel that Malazir's home is more secure, stay there. If you feel that your home is more secure, go there directly. Each of us needs to go into a personal lockdown until we can have a Council meeting in a safe location and determine what's happening. – I'm at Mr. Vincent's home with Hannah. Mrs. Vincent is out of the country. Hannah and I will return to Bel Air immediately, and I'll phone the other Council members on the way. – Don't bother about human police. Simply leave now, and let Hex or her staff discover her. I'll be in contact."

By the time he'd put the phone back in his pocket Hannah had closed the safe door and was leaning against it, staring at him. "Malazir?"

"Parcell just found her. Shot to death."

Her lips parted and she shook her head; then her eyebrows drew together. "That makes no sense. She was protecting Hex. With her death, the protective spell will have no effect. Why would he – "

"Perhaps an ally of Edward's wanted Hex to be more vulnerable to attack."

"Another killer? With more angel-blade bullets?" Hannah ran her hands through her hair, which for her was the equivalent of screaming hysterically. "This is out of control."

"We must go back to the house now. You drive, I'll call the other Council members and warn them. We'll triple-check security when we get back, then discuss what to do next."

Hannah nodded and left the office as Castiel touched the switch that slid the bookcase back in place.

.

Dean was smiling even before the other man answered the phone. "Hey, Bobby, Dean Winchester here. Not dead yet."

"Well, I'm glad to hear that. I can use any good news I can get."

"I can deliver that. Someone here wants to talk to you."

Dean handed over the phone. "Mr. Singer? This is Sam Winchester."

"Oh my God! For real?"

"For real. Dean told me everything you did, how you trained him and everything. I wanted to say thank you."

"No need to thank me. You just made my week. How are you doing?"

"Well, I'm – OK."

"Still pretty shaky."

"Yeah. But I'm better, and I'm going to keep getting better."

"That's the spirit. Is Dean all right? Did he get injured and he just won't tell me?"

"No, he's really all right. Except he keeps bossing me around."

Bobby laughed. "Well, let him do that for a couple days. I'd say he deserves it."

"Yeah, he does."

"Let me talk to him again, will you?"

"Sure."

"Great talking to you, Sam."

"I do not boss him around," Dean said.

"How'd you do it?"

"Just – finally bought the right information from the right demon. Once he was in the devil's trap, I just did the exorcism ritual the way you taught me. He slammed Sam around pretty good, but nothing permanent."

"That's great. Just great. Kinda makes it all worthwhile, even if I wasn't there."

"You were there, Bobby. Everything I did – I wouldn't have had the first idea what to do. I'm going to owe you forever."

"And me," Sam called.

"Well, start by buyin' me a beer if you get near Sioux Falls. You guys gonna stay in sunny California, or come back to God's country?"

"I've got a couple things to wrap up here, but I don't think we're gonna stay. Not a lot of great memories here for either of us."

"The things to wrap up – are those hunts?"

Dean hesitated. "Yeah. Just a couple."

And there was an answering pause on Bobby's end. "I know how that goes. They're all important. But don't let yourself get pulled into the life unless it's really more important to you than anything."

"I understand."

"Not sayin' you don't make a damn fine hunter. I'm just sayin' it's not for everybody, you understand?"

"I do. I always listen to your advice, Bobby. It's kept me alive. And it saved Sam."

"Can't tell you how good that makes me feel. I got another phone ringing, I gotta get it. You keep me posted, Dean."

"I will. We will."

Dean disconnected with a grin.

Sam said, "With Castiel coming by tomorrow, you should have him talk to Bobby. I bet they have a lot in common."

"Mm," Dean said, putting the phone away. "Castiel likes to keep a pretty low profile. Hey, what're we doing for dinner?"

.

Seated at the dining table, Castiel and Dean talked in low tones, although Sam, draped across the sofa, had his earphones on and was flipping through Smithsonian magazine.

"The more I think about it, the trickier it gets," Dean said.

"Perhaps it's not a good idea."

"No, it's a good idea. Your aide – Hannah? – she's right, you're the next logical target. If Loyalists keep dropping all around you and you're not touched, they're gonna start wondering why. Faking an attempt to kill you is the right way to go. It's just, it's a lot trickier than it sounds.

"We both agree that we need a witness. If you come staggering home with an arm injury that no one saw, that looks more suspicious than if no one tries to kill you at all. If the witnesses are humans, they'll call the cops, and I don't know how often I can get away with this before the cops track me down. They take murder a lot more seriously than stealing from drug dealers. But if the witness is a demon, he's likely to blow me into Orange County."

"Perhaps a gunshot from a hidden vantage point."

"Couple of problems with that. First, I hate to use one of the three remaining angel-blade bullets on a fake attempt, I'm savin' those for Hex. And if we use a normal bullet, the witness is likely to find it and realize this wasn't a real attempt. And second, shooting from a distance to wound is a whole different thing from shooting point-blank to kill. I'm not sure my marksmanship is up to it."

"Sure it is, Dean," Sam said.

They both looked around sharply. Sam was still lying there with his earphones on, but obviously wasn't listening to anything but the conversation.

"I mean, you'd want to practice, of course, but you've got real good aim and a steady hand. You could do it."

"Sam," Dean said, and seemed unable to go further than that. "Sam. Damn it. How much did you hear?"

"Everything." Sam sat up, shedding the earphones. "The murder thing – you've been killing demons, haven't you?"

"Sam. Look. You need to – "

"I kind of wondered about that anyway. Right after that awful thing happened at the hospital, Castiel called you and you went off to meet him. And you have those demon-killing weapons in the closet, and you told me that Castiel knew a lot about demons. And you knew how to exorcise the demon from me. I was guessing for a while that maybe you and Castiel were teaming up to kill demons, except – " He looked at Castiel and took a breath – "except you are a demon, aren't you?"

Castiel and Dean looked at each other.

"See," Dean said, "this is what it was like growing up with him. You can't get away with a damn thing."

"Can you see my true form?" Castiel asked Sam.

"No. It's because you hurt when someone does something nice. The demon – he – " Sam couldn't yet bring himself to say Andrealphus' name – "he would hurt like that sometimes. But it was easy for him to get rid of it, he'd just get jealous of the warmth and fill himself up with anger and hate. It got rid of the pain, but not the – " he stared off for a moment – "the hopelessness. That was always there."

Castiel nodded, and there was a moment of silence.

Dean looked at Castiel. "Forever?"

"I assume."

Dean and Sam exchanged a look. Then Dean said, "What are the three ways that a demon can escape Hell's influence?"

"This has nothing to do with – "

"Tell me now, Cas. Or you'll have to fake your own attempt on your life."

Castiel shrugged. "A very few times in the history of humanity, a human soul has somehow learned repentance and empathy in Hell. For most souls, this is impossible. There is nothing about unceasing torture and cruelty that teaches empathy. But very occasionally – and it's impossible to predict which ones it will be – a human soul realizes that this pain is like the pain he or she inflicted on Earth, that he is feeling what his victims once felt, that the self-absorption of the demons torturing him is like the self-absorption he once felt. A few of them have even told their torturers that they understood the pain driving them. And shortly afterward – they disappear from Hell. No one knows where they go. They somehow slip the bonds of Hell."

"OK. What's the second way?"

"An angel can enter hell and take a soul away. This has happened even fewer times than a soul learning empathy, but it's possible."

"And the third way?"

Castiel stood up and walked as far away from them as he could – which, in that apartment, wasn't far. He turned in a corner of the kitchenette, his voice steady, not looking at either of them. "It's something like the first way, except that the soul has changed completely to a demonic spirit and is occupying a human body. The spirit begins to identify with human beings, to feel empathy. The grief at the loss of love, the pain of sympathy for humans, puts the spirit through a – transformative process. If the original soul in the demon's meatsuit has moved on, the transformation – " only now did he seem to grope for words – "reverses the change Hell wrought. The demonic spirit – regresses, to a human soul, fused to its, its body."

Dean said, "The demon becomes human."

After a moment, "Yes."

Dean stood. "Has the original soul moved on from your body?"

Castiel smiled a little, shook his head. "Yes. But the chance – "

"You need to do that."

"I'm not strong enough to withstand the pain."

"Yes you are."

"You don't know what you're talking about."

"It really is – " Sam said, and they both looked over at him. "It really is awful, Dean. It's like – OK, remember when you were cooking pasta and you accidentally joggled the pot and boiling water splashed on you?"

Reluctantly, "Yeah."

"And you remember the way you felt the night Dad died?"

Dean's determined look faded as he began realizing what Sam was saying. "Yeah."

"OK. Imagine those both at once, multiplied by ten. That's what – the demon would feel, just in little flashes, and he had to hate someone or kill someone or get high just to get away from it. I think what Castiel is saying is, while he tried to become human, he'd feel like that all the time, and he doesn't know how long it would last."

Castiel nodded, and Dean gave him a grief-stricken look.

Sam looked at Castiel. "And even so, I think you should do it."

Castiel raised an eyebrow. "It's easy – "

"You're kind of in the middle now, and you get these stabs of pain a lot. Right? Eventually you're not going to be able to take it. Eventually you're going to have to get rid of the pain, either by going completely demonic, so you can cover up the pain with hate, or by going human."

"Because being human is painless," Castiel said dryly.

"Yeah, it hurts sometimes," Dean said. "Still sounds like being a demon is worse."

"And if you're human, you can have friends, and – " Sam's gaze flicked quickly to Dean and back to Castiel – "and loved ones, to help you through the pain. Maybe even a feeling like a spiritual connection. There's nothing like that when you're a demon."

Castiel's back was pressed against the kitchenette counter, his shoulders pinched up, his hands raised as if in surrender. "I will, I will consider it. If we can leave this topic and discuss the next step in the war."

"The war?" Sam asked.

"Civil war between demons," Dean said. "I'll tell you about it later. – I'm thinking maybe a drive-by up in the hills, where the bullet goes off into a ravine, so no one even knows we didn't use an angel-blade bullet. It might be kind of hard logistically – "

Sam shrugged. "I drive, you shoot at Castiel while he's in a car. Castiel's driver can be the witness."

"No way. You are not getting involved with this."

"Dean, I am involved with it. I'm the whole reason why you're here, remember?"

"And you're still freaked out."

"Less and less all the time, Dean. And this is a two-person job."

"Maybe later – "

"Maybe now. I've got an idea."

Castiel and Dean heard him out, and the three of them refined the idea until they all agreed that it was as likely to work as any plan in a demonic civil war was apt to work.

As it turned out, they would never know whether it would have worked or not.


	5. Chapter 5

The Council meeting was held a week after Malazir's death at a lovely home in the Hollywood Hills that Mr. Vincent had used as a safe house and battle-planning retreat. Sam and Dean had previously scoped out the location and, fifteen minutes before Castiel arrived, they parked their stolen dark-blue Camry in front of a house on a hill overlooking the Vincent house. Sam, at the wheel, gave a little sigh and rolled his head; Dean, using binoculars, studied the house below.

"I have the feeling this is going to take hours," Sam said, tipping his head back and closing his eyes.

"I think so too, but I wanted to see the demons and their cars as they arrive. I don't want to try to shoot a bullet through Castiel's window with one of them right behind us on the highway. Here's someone, a little early." And a moment later, "The man himself, going full Mafia bigwig – black Lincoln Continental, with a driver. Guess that must be Lester."

"Well, with all the demons around him getting killed, Castiel can't look like he feels safe tooling around by himself. I'm surprised he got away to our place the other day."

Dean smiled quickly, but kept observing the house. "His aide Hannah is having some kind of surveillance equipment installed at the Bel Air place. He knew she'd be all absorbed in that when he snuck out to our meeting. OK. Cas just popped the trunk, and Lester's pulling out – a trunk. How appropriate."

"Any indication what's in it?"

Dean shook his head. "Les isn't having any problem hefting it, but he's a demon, so it could be full of bricks and he'd lift it like it was empty."

Castiel opened the front door and held it for Lester. "Just put it in the front hall here," he said.

Lester shook his head, still holding the trunk. "They're not gonna like this."

"At any other time, I'd agree. But with what's been happening, they'll understand the need for increased security."

"You want me to clear the meeting room?"

"No, I'll do that. You guard the front door."

Lester set the trunk down as Castiel went into the meeting room. It had previously been a formal dining room at a front corner of the house, with large windows giving views of the acre of grass that surrounded the house. There were trees, but not close enough to provide cover for anyone threatening the house; they bordered the property just inside the tall wrought-iron fence. The windows, set in the rock exterior walls of the house, were of bulletproof glass and outfitted with both decorative lace jabots and businesslike blackout curtains.

Castiel stood by the large polished cherrywood table at the room's center and, at first, simply turned, observing the walls and ceiling. It was the same look he'd given the office and hallway at Sucro before Mr. Vincent's murder. Then he physically began moving about the room, opening drawers, checking under and behind furniture, opening floor and wall vents.

He went back into the front hall and said, "Lester."

Lester, standing on the front porch, gave a short yell and, with a jumping turn, grabbed the hilt of his angel blade.

Castiel held up both hands, a little amused. "Don't attack, it's me. I'm going to clear the rest of the house. I should be done about the time we're ready for company."

An abashed Lester nodded, pulled his jacket straight, and surveyed the yard.

Watching through the binoculars, Dean snorted. "Lester's standing on the front porch, shifting his weight, keeps touching the angel blade sheath under his jacket. Try and stand still, Les, you'll look tougher."

Then he looked around. "You doin' OK?"

"I'm a little nervous, but I'm OK."

"Well, just remember there's not going to be any actual killing. Only reason I let you come on this job."

Sam didn't even open his eyes. "Is that why? I thought you needed my superior driving skills."

"Oh-ho. You're livin' dangerously." And after a moment, "God, it's good to have you back."

"I don't know." Sam's eyelids trembled a little. "Don't know how I'm ever going to repay you."

"Just by being my family, that's all. I can't be trusted if you're not constantly whining to keep me in line."

Sam smiled, and Dean said, "OK. Blue Taurus, parking behind the limo. Nice contrast. And the driver is – the headmistress of the world's scariest girl's school."

A tall, severe-faced woman with perfectly coiffed silver hair got out of the car. She was wearing a gray skirt suit, and looped a briefcase with a long strap over her left shoulder. She pulled an angel blade out of a pocket in the driver's side door, closed the door, and stood with her back to the car looking all around her.

"Where the hell is Lester?" Dean asked. Then, as Lester skidded through the front door, "There he is. Great security there, Les. I'm going to tell Cas, next time put the scary lady on the door."

Then, as the scary lady approached the door of the house, Dean reported, "OK, here we go. Silver Benz and a black Alfa Romeo Stelvio. That's more like the demon mob. I bet that's the same Benz that was parked outside Malazir's house."

Revard parked his Stelvio several yards away from Parcell's Mercedes on the home's long two-lane curved driveway. He was wearing a gorgeous black leather trench coat over his business suit. It didn't hide the hilt of his angel blade in its sheath, but he probably didn't want it to.

"Alfa Romeo guy's by himself, but it looks like Benz guy brought muscle." Then as both men got out of the silver car, Dean laughed. "That must be the sorcerer who replaced Malazir. A sorcerer's idea of muscle is different from the rest of us."

Parcell was wearing a dark blue poet's shirt. He carried no blade, but had a small bag hanging from his belt and a black book in one hand. The man who stepped out of the passenger-side front door was wearing a long black robe and carried a black metal object that looked like a censer by a handle. He put one hand into the censer and, as he withdrew it, red-orange smoke poured out of it. As Parcell looked warily around the grounds, the robed man circled the car with the smoke, then circled Parcell, chanting the while. The two of them walked up to the house, the robed man still chanting. He moved the censer up and down in the doorway, and Parcell passed in through the red-orange cloud. Lester waved his hand and coughed, looking annoyed. The robed man stepped down from the porch and began circling the house as smoke poured from the censer unabated.

"All right, we're getting close to a quorum, and holy cow, hot brunette in a red Camaro convertible."

Sam opened his eyes for that one, looking over Dean's shoulder. "Give me the binoculars. You can't appreciate this."

"I can appreciate a beautiful woman, I just don't lust after them." But Dean surrendered the binoculars as a slender Asian-American woman, her long hair clipped behind her ears, parked the convertible and jumped out. She was wearing a black catsuit with a belt low on her hips; the belt had a gun holster on one side and an angel blade sheath on the other, and she had a dagger strapped to her ankle. She was carrying a laptop in a bright red case.

Sam had no sooner grinned than the grin left his face and he pulled the binoculars away. "Poor woman. She had some kind of plans of her own, some dream. And a demon said, 'Hey, a good-looking meatsuit!'" He gave the binoculars back to Dean and shrank back against the driver's-side door.

"She might have passed on, like, decades ago," Dean said gently. "The demon dressed her up sexy and contemporary, but the woman's spirit might be long gone."

"Still horrible."

"Yes."

After a moment, Dean looked down the hill again, swept the lenses back and forth. "I think there's supposed to be someone else, but I'm not seeing anybody coming down the road."

"With what's been going on lately, any demon is probably thinking long and hard about attending a meeting of highly-placed demons."

"Good point." Dean continued to survey the house and road below.

As each demon entered the house, but before he or she entered the meeting room, Castiel greeted the guest politely, asked what he or she wanted to drink, and told each to put weapons and cell phones into the trunk in the hallway. The arguments that ensued took up some time, but Castiel's quiet persistence won the day. Revard and the brunette kept their angel-blade bullets, but surrendered their guns, and when the trunk was locked, the guests assembled around the meeting room table.

Castiel served drinks personally to Lester, who remained on guard at the door, and Parcell's aide, who continued to circle the house with the infernal censer, as well as the Council members in the meeting room. Castiel and the silver-haired woman drank water, Revard had black coffee, Lester drank soda pop, the "hot brunette" sipped a glass of red wine, and it was probably just as well not to ask about the dark red liquid Parcell and his aide drank. Whatever they wanted, Castiel seemed to have prepared for it.

Then Castiel closed the door and stood at the head of the table. "There have been so many – changes, of late, that we may not all be acquainted with each other. I am Castiel, the Assistant Operations Officer of Sucro. I was consigliere to Mr. Vincent."

"And now you're moving up to capo, judging by your position at the table?" the brunette said in a scathing tone.

"I prefer to act in an advisory capacity," Castiel said easily. "I assumed this seat because I want to perform the introductions and to establish the order of business. After that, I'll sit wherever you'd like." He looked at the silver-haired woman to his right. "This is Ms. Hughes, who was a Vice President of Sucro. She was the contingent beneficiary of Mr. Vincent's key-man insurance policy, allowing her to buy Mr. Vincent's controlling shares in the company if Edward was unable to."

"Much to the dismay of some male humans," Ms. Hughes said crisply.

Castiel smiled. "Ms. Hughes has the same gift that Mr. Vincent had for combining mundane business affairs with our more – other-worldly activities." He indicated Revard, who was sitting to his left. "I think you all know Revard, who has assumed Edward Vincent's role as general in our war against the Terrestrials." He moved his open hand to indicate the brunette. "Megaera has taken on Revard's former job as head of our armory, in charge of anti-angelic, anti-demonic, and anti-human weaponry."

Megaera nodded coolly, and Castiel indicated Parcell, who was sitting across the table from Megaera and next to Ms. Hughes. "Parcell was Malazir's aide, and is now taking charge of our efforts to raise Lucifer."

He looked around at all of them. "There are two demons who are not members of this Council whom I nonetheless invited, because they should be here to explain some things, but neither is here. Hex is incommunicado. And Vulcan called me a few minutes ago and said that he was too frightened to leave his house, that he intends to remain on lockdown until the killer – or killers – of our comrades is found."

Ms. Hughes raised an eyebrow. "That's suspicious."

"Well, Vulcan is a coward," Megaera said – not with animus, simply stating a fact. "It's odd that the best demonic weapons-maker is so afraid of weapons – "

"Or perfectly logical," Parcell said. "He knows what they can do."

"I believe that Vulcan has changed loyalties," Ms. Hughes said. "I think that he conspired with Hex, providing Hex with weapons to kill Mr. Vincent and Edward and Malazir."

"Malazir was protecting Hex," Parcell said. "Even if he intended to double-cross her, he'd have waited until he was in a position of power to do it."

"Why are we assuming it's Loyalists?" Megaera asked. "We're at war with Terrestrials."

"We know that Hex killed Edward – he left his old meatsuit at the scene," Castiel replied. "And it seems more likely that Loyalists, rather than Terrestrials, would have access to, and steal weapons from, Mr. Vincent's personal armory."

There was a dumbfounded silence.

"Are weapons gone from Mr. Vincent's armory?" Megaera asked.

"An angel blade. A tempered jawbone. And six angel-blade bullets."

Megaera popped open her laptop and began working the keyboard.

"Two bullets used at Mr. Vincent's killing," Revard said at the same moment. "Three at Edward's killing. One at Malazir's. He's out."

"I still say that Hex wouldn't have killed Malazir at this time," Parcell said.

"I would tend to agree," Castiel said. "Which raises the specter that there are two killers in our midst, one supplied by Mr. Vincent's armory and one by Vulcan himself, working at cross-purposes."

The door popped open suddenly, and a room full of killer demons jumped.

It was Lester, holding a cell phone in his hand. "I'm sorry, sir – Sorry, all – " he said, looking around the room. "Hannah insisted that I interrupt. She needs to talk to you, very urgently, out – " he looked around again – "out of earshot of the meeting."

Revard narrowed his eyes at Castiel. "Tell her you're out of earshot, and put it on speaker."

"What?" Lester said into the phone. He looked at Revard nervously. "Um – uh, sir, she heard that."

"Hannah would not interrupt a Council meeting for trivia," Castiel said calmly. "I will tell you what she tells me."

Lester left the room and the house, carrying the phone to the car as Castiel followed.

Parcell stood. "I'm going to have my aide circle the room with protective smoke, while there's a break."

"Good idea," Revard said enthusiastically, but made a face, as Parcell turned his back, that made Ms. Hughes crack a smile.

Out by the car, Castiel took Lester's phone. "Speak, Hannah. – Hello? Hannah?"

In the meeting room a phone rang, and Ms. Hughes asked, "Who thought they were too good to give up their phone?"

There was a thud that Sam and Dean could hear even up on the hillside; they almost felt it, it resounded off the side of the Camry. Windows on the first floor blew out; Parcel's aide, who'd been crossing in front of one, was thrown by the blast, and the Winchesters could see jets of blood and orange light flying from him.

The blast rocked the Lincoln on its tires. Lester fell to his knees as Castiel grabbed the car's roof for support. Lester scrambled back up and ran for the driver's door. "Let's get out of here!"

"There may be survivors!"

"Who cares?" Lester yelled. It was the proper demonic attitude, but Castiel headed toward the front door, turning only long enough to say, "If you leave, Lester, I will deliver you to the infernal torturers." Then he disappeared into the front door, leaving Lester sitting in the car, looking all around him, wild-eyed.

"Damn it, Cas, don't go back in there," Dean hissed under the binoculars. "Don't." He turned in the seat and pulled the devil's-trap gun from his ankle holster. "Get us down there, now."

The wall between the hallway and the meeting room looked like wooden lace, dark gray smoke streaming through dozens of punctures. The wall beneath the stairway on the other side of the hall was punched through in dozens of places as well. Parcell was lying face-down on the hallway floor. Black glittering shards were stuck in the backs of his arms and his shoulder blades, and he was moaning in pain, but he was alive.

Castiel dropped to his knees. "Parcell, try not to move. I'm going to take these shards out of you."

Parcell nodded. Castiel cast an anxious glance at the door of the meeting room. He couldn't see any of the other three attendees from that viewpoint. He went to work pulling pieces of metal out of Parcell, who yelled and swore but remained as still as possible.

Castiel put the shards in the pocket of his trench coat, but paused as he pulled out one large piece to rub it between his finger and thumb. The explosion itself, and Parcell's blood, had layered a dark film on the metal, but when Castiel rubbed it the true, softly lustrous silver color was revealed.

"Shards of angel blades," he said. "It's amazing that you're alive, Parcell."

"The smoke, the protective incense," Parcell said. "Where's my aide?"

He stood, with the eerie enraged rigidity of a demon who's just carried its meatsuit through an attack that should have been fatal, and stalked out the door. Castiel looked after him just in time to see the Camry pause at the electronic gates at the foot of the drive.

Parcell let out a brief roar and staggered toward the body of his aide in the side yard. Lester looked around to see what was going on, and Cas took a step out the door, looked at the Camry, and made a commanding, dismissing gesture with one hand.

"He says go. Let's move," Dean said, and Sam accelerated past the house.

Parcell fell – he'd tried to move too soon. Castiel banged his hand on the Lincoln's window. Lester jumped and rolled the window down. "Get Parcell in the car and stay here until I come back out," he snapped, and plunged back into the house.

The meeting room table was shattered, and its scattered pieces were on fire. The sheetrock over the front wall was shredded, revealed blackened shards jammed into the rock exterior wall that had saved Castiel's and Lester's lives.

Seeing a boot under a chunk of the table, Castiel lifted the burning wood. Megaera was underneath. The shards had almost decapitated her. Ms. Hughes was less mutilated, but no less dead.

Castiel looked around. Even the flame-resistant carpeting was slowly, sullenly burning in patches, grayish-green smoke impeding visibility. "Minus fumi," he said, and the air cleared even as fire kept flickering.

In the Camry, Sam turned a corner, did a U-turn, and stopped the Camry on the intersecting street at a place where they'd have a good view of any car going from the house toward the freeway. "I'm assuming that you want to follow Castiel's car at least as far as the border of Bel Air."

"Damn, you're good. Yeah." Dean rested the gun on his knee, out of sight of a casual observer. "Just in case anything else interesting happens."

"Are those angel-blade bullets?"

Dean shook his head in exasperation. "I was so sure we were just going to put a normal bullet through Cas' car and drive away, I didn't bother to bring 'em. But this has devil's-trap bullets. It stopped Vincent cold, it can stop other demons. Hopefully we won't need it."

Castiel found Revard slumped by one wall. At first he thought that Revard was waving for help, and then he realized that Revard's wrist was pinned to the wall above his head by a large shard. The handsome face of which he'd been so proud had multiple gashes and was covered with blood. A chunk of his cheek hung loose, exposing some teeth, and a small shard had put out his left eye before lodging in the eye's orbit.

Castiel shook his head and stood.

Revard's good eye opened. It was like a dead man's eye opening, and it riveted Cas for a moment before he dropped back down.

"Wuh?" It was the closest Revard could come to enunciating.

"A bomb," Castiel said. "This will hurt, but it's necessary." He yanked out the chunk of metal pinning Revard's arm to the wall, and Revard grunted as his arm dropped.

His other hand went to his face, and as he felt the ruination he let out a roar of rage. "Don't move for a moment," Castiel said, and, with surgical precision, pulled the shard out of the bone by Revard's destroyed eye. Revard yelled again. "Killm!"

"We will," Castiel said. "But first we need to get out of this house. Parcell survived, perhaps he has a healing spell that will help – "

He was trying to put his hands under Revard's arms to help him up, and suddenly felt sharp cuts on both wrists. The sight of Revard's face had been so reminiscent of something from Hell that Cas hadn't even realized there were shards lodged in Revard's black leather coat.

"Your coat stopped shrapnel," Castiel said in astonishment.

"Kebluh. Agic."

Castiel watched Revard's mouth for the sounds he was trying to make, as well as the sounds that came out. "Magically strengthened Kevlar? A wise use of human technology."

Revard somehow managed to stand without help. Blood and drool ran out of his shredded cheek, and the remains of his eyelid couldn't completely cover his empty eye socket, which was also draining. "Ageeyah."

"Megaera is dead. So are Ms. Hughes and Parcell's aide. We need to leave."

Revard staggered toward the door, his depth perception destroyed by the loss of one eye. Castiel retrieved the angel-blade bullets from the zippered pouch on the thigh of Megaera's catsuit. He took her laptop, found and took Ms. Hughes' briefcase and Parcell's book, and followed Revard to the Lincoln.

Lester opened the door locks, then looked away from the sight of Revard's face. Revard dropped into the back seat and damn near passed out on Parcell, who looked disgusted but began chanting. Castiel beckoned to Lester, who reluctantly got out of the car.

The two of them carried the body of Parcell's aide into the meeting room, where the smoke and fire were beginning to build again. Then they carried the trunk of cell phones and weapons to the Lincoln and put it in the trunk, along with the items Cas had retrieved from the meeting room. Glass from a blown-out window behind the car crunched under their feet, and as Castiel closed the trunk, Lester pointed to shrapnel that had gouged the fender and taken out a taillight. "If we'd been – just a few feet – "

"Yes," Castiel said. "We were lucky."

With a nod, he indicated that Lester could get back into the car. He himself looked into a shattered window and said, "Ignem." He felt a gust as the small blazes in the room suddenly roared to life and sucked oxygen from surrounding space. He could see red-orange flames racing in straight lines up the corners of the room.

"Here comes the car," Sam said a minute later. "Is Castiel there?"

Dean put down the binoculars. "Yeah, in the front seat. Couple of demons in the back seat who survived, too bad." And as Sam pulled forward, "Lots of following distance, don't bring any attention."

Castiel glanced into the rear-view mirror and saw two things: Revard's mutilated face as his head rested on the back seat, and the blue Camry of a pair of humans who were several car lengths behind, watching over him. Sympathy, and gratitude for friendship.

He let out a puff of air and bent a little in the seat. He felt like his bones were on fire.

"Are you injured?" Lester asked.

"I am enraged," Castiel said, as much to himself as to Lester. "I am consumed with hate."

"Damn right. Don't worry, consigliere. We'll get the SOBs."

By the time the fire department was called, the house was fully engulfed in flames.

.

Although Castiel's phone was locked in the trunk, Castiel still had Lester's phone in his pocket. He decided, however, not to make any calls until they were safely in the mansion. When they arrived, Lester ran upstairs and called Hannah out of the room where the SavorStop surveillance monitors had been installed. He told her briefly what had happened. Hannah summoned the four security guards who lived on the premises and the five of them met in the living room, where Parcell was removing the shrapnel-riddled coat from Revard. Revard half-collapsed onto the sofa; one of the guards gasped visibly at the sight of his face.

Parcell put the folded coat on the floor and beckoned Castiel to one side. "I can make a poultice that will speed the healing of his face, if you have magical herbs and equipment on the premises."

Castiel nodded down the hall toward the kitchen. "I think you'll find what you need in the pantry. Ask Frederic for help. If not, let me know what you need, and I'll send someone out for it."

Parcell nodded, took a step, stopped. "I cannot regenerate an eye," he said in a low tone. "No one can."

Castiel nodded. "Do whatever you can. We need him in fighting shape as soon as possible. And see to your own wounds."

"I'll do that first," Parcell said. "I don't like being in pain."

He headed down the hall, and Hannah moved from Revard to Castiel. "What happened?" she asked her voice aghast. "Lester said there was a bomb?"

"Yes. The blast threw shards of angel blades in all directions." Carefully, he pulled a couple of them out of his pocket and showed them to her. "Megaera, Ms. Hughes, and Parcell's aide are all dead. You see Parcell and Revard. I thought I had completely inspected the house before the meeting began. Either I failed, or the bomb was magically hidden or transported to the meeting room after my inspection." He looked over at the four beefy guards. "Axel and Leo." All four of them looked over. "Thoroughly examine our perimeter security. Devin, you are posted at the front door. Inzur, call Logan and the other three, tell them to come here. Four guards around the house in eight-hour shifts, until further notice."

The four guards nodded and moved. Devin pulled a coat from the front hall over his angel blade before going to the door; Axel and Leo checked angel-bullet guns as they left.

Castiel turned back to Hannah, who was looking at him questioningly. "What are you wondering?"

She probably didn't mean to sound suspicious. "How does it happen that you and Lester are unharmed?"

And he was right back at her with the suspicion. "Your call insisting that I leave the meeting to talk to you came at just the right moment."

She took a step back, looked at him sharply. "I made no call."

"None at all?"

"None. I spent the day trying various methods to find Hex, then did observations on the SavorStop monitors."

Castiel's gaze went sideways up the staircase, then back to Hannah. "Where's Lester?"

"In his room, I believe."

She and Castiel vanished, materialized at the top of the steps, and headed toward the back of the house.

Castiel threw open the door of Lester's room. Lester was sitting in front of a burning candle, fists held out before him, and jumped at the intrusion with a frightened yell.

"Tell me about the phone call from Hannah."

Lester stammered, looking back and forth between them. "It – I – She, she said that she'd received new information. About someone conspiring with Hex. She said you had to leave the meeting to talk about it. I figured she was saying that someone at the meeting was the one conspiring with Hex."

"Liar," Hannah said coldly.

"Not necessarily," Castiel said. "Bear in mind that there are demons who can mimic others' voices. There was no one on the phone when I picked it up."

He pulled Lester's phone out of his pocket and checked the last call received. Hannah looked at the screen too, then looked at Lester with a combination of amusement and disgust.

Castiel showed the phone to Lester. Lester blinked at it, looked up at Castiel. "That's not Hannah's number."

"No," Castiel said. "It's not."

Lester reached for the phone, but Castiel put it back in a jacket pocket.

"I just – There was so much stress, and I just answered the phone, I didn't pay any attention – and it was her voice! It was! She said it was urgent, more important even than the Council meeting, and – "

He made futile gestures with his hands.

"It's hard to be angry," Castiel said. "Your gullibility is the reason we're still alive. But we must get to the bottom of this. Let's go back downstairs and see to Revard."

For a moment they thought Revard was dead, and then realized that he was sleeping like the lowliest human, even with his face torn.

"I'm going to tell Parcell to hurry," Hannah said. "And I'll tell Frederic to make dinner for – "

"All of the usual, plus Revard and Parcell and four extra security guards. If Frederic needs more of anything, send Axel and Leo. Don't go anywhere by yourself."

She just looked at him.

"And I won't either," he said.

She hurried down the hall, and Castiel sat in a chair across from Revard.

A few minutes later Parcell came in. He was shirtless, a green ointment spread across his shoulder blades and arms, and he was carrying a large piece of cloth with more of the ointment spread over one side. "You allow your aide too much latitude, Castiel. She actually snapped at me. With the suspicion attached to her now, she should be much more meek."

Castiel quelled a smile. "I'll take that up with her. But no suspicion attaches to Hannah. The call didn't come from her phone, it came from this number."

Parcell was sitting on the sofa beside Revard, trying to hold his cheek together while pressing the poultice on it. Castiel turned to the record of the last call on Lester's phone, stood up, and showed it to Parcell. "Does that number look familiar?"

"No. But anyone could buy another phone."

"Precisely. Anyone could."

Parcell seemed to concede as he nodded, closed his eyes, and began chanting while his fingers pressed on the poultice. Revard remained still, his good eye closed.

"The phone call is a secondary consideration, anyway," Hannah said from the doorway. "The primary question should be, who made and planted the bomb?"

"I would say that the planting of the bomb is the primary question. I don't think there's any doubt as to who made it."

"Vulcan," Hannah said. "He's the only one with skill enough to reduce angel blades to shrapnel."

"And he called me just before the meeting to say that he would not attend – supposedly, because he was so fearful of the recent violence."

She shook her head. "And by now he could be halfway across the continent."

"Not if he had an arrangement with his employer that he wouldn't get his full pay until after the bomb went off. Is there any chance that Vulcan did this by himself for some reason, not for hire?"

"Not a chance," Hannah said, and even Parcell interrupted his chanting to say, "Very unlikely."

"I will send Axel and Leo to Vulcan's home to begin a search."

"I can scry for him if you have something that belongs to him," Parcell said.

Hannah and Castiel exchanged a blank look. Then Castiel pulled a couple of the angel-blade shards from his pocket. "I don't know if he touched them, but if Vulcan made the bomb he would have dealt with these in some way."

"I'll try to make it work," Parcell said, leaving the poultice propped on Revard's face and standing.

"No. Finished your healing work first."

The other two looked at Castiel sharply.

"This is not sympathy. When we find who hired Vulcan, we'll need Revard in the best possible condition to find and defeat him."

There were muffled voices, and they all looked around. Someone was having an argument on the front doorstep.

Castiel went to the door, looked at the peephole. "Human police. I presume they identified Ms. Hughes' car, or Revard's, at the safe house. Parcell? Can Revard walk?"

Parcell woke Revard, who was able to move. Castiel did a vanishing jump down the hall and summoned the elevator that had replaced the back staircase. Revard stalked toward the elevator, pressing the poultice to his face, his one eye fixed straight ahead of him, Parcell chanting as he walked beside him. Castiel shed his coat and handed it to Hannah. "As soon as Revard's face is in one piece, get Parcell anything he needs to scry for Vulcan."

She reached inside the coat. "Your blade – "

Castiel smiled. "It's still locked in the car. Of course, I wouldn't need it with humans."

She looked a little embarrassed and nodded. The elevator door closed between them. Castiel pulled his shirt cuffs straight from under his jacket sleeves, straightened his tie, and went to the door just as the doorbell resounded throughout the house.

Devin was trying to maneuver between the doorbell and the broad-shouldered, middle-aged man who'd just pushed it. Another man in a suit, younger than the first, stood behind both of them, his jacket unbuttoned and his hand near his gun, watching Devin like a hawk. Devin was saying " – not without a warrant, you don't!"

"Devin, there's no need to be over-protective," Castiel said in his most suave tones. "Detective Edwards is a well known member of the LAPD. We're actually safer when he's on the premises, as he is so often. Come in, gentlemen."

He stood to one side and the two detectives walked in, Edwards looking over every inch of the front hall and the living rooms on either side with one sweeping gaze. Castiel gave the younger detective a disarming smile. "I don't believe we've met. I'm Castiel De Santis."

"Um. Detective Torres." The man pulled a small case from his pocket and gave Castiel a business card.

"Have a seat, gentlemen." The sofa where Revard had been bleeding was dark, so stains didn't show, but of course Castiel gestured with an open hand toward the other living room. "Would you like some coffee?"

"Where were you between noon and four today?" Edwards asked, without moving.

Castiel looked back and forth between the detectives. "Has something else happened?"

"Answer the question, please."

"Well, for most of the afternoon I was in my car. Lester, my chauffeur, can vouch for that. I find the movement clearing to the mind. Toward the end of that time we picked up one of the board members of Sucro, Revard Williams. I believe you've met him. We discussed the situation at the company – you can well imagine the number of changes that have had to be made, with the deaths of the Vincents."

"You had a business meeting," Edwards said, "driving around in a car."

Castiel raised one eyebrow. "Is that against the law? Why are you here, Detective?"

"Let's get the details on your story first." Now Edwards headed for a chair. Castiel nodded to Torres, but Torres wanted Castiel to precede him into the living room, so he did, sighing just a bit.


	6. Chapter 6

Sam and Dean parked the stolen Camry in a parking garage in Old Town Pasadena and walked to a different floor in the same garage, chanting the camera-blinding spell the whole time. Dean gave the Impala an affectionate pat before they got in.

"Got an idea," he said. "Let's go to dinner in Beverly Hills, live like rich people."

Sam chuckled. "Got an idea. Why don't you just admit that you don't want to get too far from Bel Air?"

"That was a bomb, Sam. You saw what it did. It was sheer luck that Cas wasn't killed."

"Mm," Sam said, shifting his gaze.

"And that means. . .? "

"Maybe it wasn't luck. Maybe Cas planted that bomb to get rid of a bunch of Loyalists at once."

"I don't think he'd do that without telling me. And besides, in that case, why work out that whole plan to fake an attempt on his life?"

"Maybe to have us as witnesses? For some reason of his own? I'm not saying that's the explanation for sure, I'm just saying – we can't forget he's a demon. And I know – " as Dean began to speak – "I know we owe him. I owe him more than anybody. But facts are facts."

Dean nodded. "I wish he'd call, we could get his story. Damn it, this hard-to-get thing with the blocked number is old. Next time he calls he's givin' me a phone number or I'm gonna exorcise his ass."

Sam looked directly at his brother. "You like this, don't you?"

"'This' meaning – "

"The action. The plotting. Killing."

"Killing demons, Sam. And to paraphrase you, you know what they do better than anybody."

"Yes. I'm just, I'm a little worried about you."

Dean gave him a flashing grin. "Afraid I'm goin' demonic on you?"

"Not demonic. Just, maybe, a little disconnected from human concerns."

Dean's hand had been hovering over the key in the ignition. Now he dropped it and sat back, exhaling a long breath.

"When I shot Vincent, it really shook me up. I actually told Cas I didn't think I could kill anyone else, demon or not. Then I started understanding what you went through, and Hex killed those humans at the hospital, and I felt like – I wanted someone to pay for that crap. It was a lot easier to kill Malazir. And then when we were planning that fake assassination attempt the other day, I thought, too bad we're planning to do it when the cars are moving, otherwise I could put a bullet in Castiel's driver."

He thought for a moment, and Sam watched him a little anxiously.

"So maybe you have a point. I want to help Castiel see this through, but it seems like the more Loyalists get killed the more pop up, and the Terrestrials aren't exactly the good guys either. I can see where someone could wind up spending his life like this. Like Bobby Singer. And he's a great guy, God I'm glad he was there when he was. But I don't think I'd want to live that life forever."

"There are all kinds of ways of helping people, fighting for justice, without cutting yourself off from any kind of normal life."

Dean nodded. "I've got to kill Hex. Because of what I did, he wound up killing two humans, and he's not gonna get away with that. And I'm going to try to get Cas to go human and get the hell out of here with us." Then, with an unexpected thought, he looked at Sam. "That OK with you?"

After a moment, Sam nodded. "If he agrees to go human. If he stays a demon, Dean, it's just a matter of time until he hurts you, I mean physically. If he goes human, OK. And there'd be two of us to help him with the pain of changing."

"All right, then. We know the goal line, we've just got to get there."

"Do you have enough money? I could get a job."

Dean thought about it. "Yeah, enough for a couple of months, anyway. If Hex is still alive then, I'm gonna consider that a personal failure. I mean, if you want to get a job that's great, but we're gonna have to get ID with your own name on it and everything. And I've gotta tell you, I like having you as backup."

Sam smiled. "OK. Well, as long as you're rich, then, let's do dinner at Beverly Hills."

Dean started the car. "I really wish Cas would call."

.

Hannah waited silently upstairs until Castiel closed the door behind the detectives, then she appeared in the hall. "Parcell found Vulcan at LAX. He says he can narrow down his location within the airport given a little more time."

"Excellent." He opened the door again. "Devin, call Axel and Leo."

"Revard asked for their services about ten minutes ago."

"Revard came down here?"

"I think he went out through the kitchen and came around the house until he found them on the perimeter. Maybe he knew cops were here. His face is in one piece – doesn't look good, but he can talk."

"If Parcell weren't already on the Council, I'd say he'd earned a promotion today," Castiel said. "All right, find Ricardo and put him on the door. You and Inzur will find Vulcan at LAX and bring him back to the interrogation room. Hannah will call you in a few minutes with more specific information about – "

"Um, sir – " Devin said, looking over Castiel's shoulder.

Revard was walking down the staircase, followed by Lester and six of the eight guards Castiel had summoned earlier. As Devin had said, Revard didn't look good. His missing eye was covered with gauze and a cross of tape, and his handsome face was marred with gashes and pits. But the gaping rip in his cheek had been reduced to a thick scar by Parcel's magic. He stopped two steps above the hallway, the others grouped behind him.

"Revard, you look much better," Castiel said.

"I suppose I should be grateful," Revard said, sounding anything but grateful. "We're going to talk, Castiel."

"By all means. We can have a drink in my office."

"No. I want witnesses for this discussion."

Castiel's gaze swept over the guards standing behind Revard. "Where's Inzur?"

Leo spoke, sounding nervous. "He's, ah, he wouldn't leave the back door unguarded. Sir."

"Devin, go ahead and do what I just told you to do. Take Inzur with you."

Devin clearly didn't like the situation. "Sir – "

Only now did Castiel look away from the guards and at Devin. "It's very important that Frederic have the foods he needs for our dinner guests."

With a reluctant nod and a look at his fellow guards, Devin left.

Quietly, magically, an angel blade materialized in Hannah's hand from the sleeve of her jacket. It was an angel's trick that she'd worked hard to duplicate.

Castiel turned in the open doorway, squaring off with Revard. For anyone who knew him well, the absence of his trench coat made him look vulnerable. "Say what you have to say, Revard."

"You betrayed us, Castiel. You set up that meeting, you set the bomb. You did this to me, and you killed Megaera. And you saved yourself with the obvious ruse of a phone call from your aide, who loves you so much she'd do anything – "

"That's an insult, Revard." Hannah's voice was hard. "I don't love anything."

"Lust after, then." Revard looked at her with amusement. "It's pathetically obvious, Hannah. And you'll get nothing from it. We all know his tastes as well as you do."

Hannah took a step forward, and Castiel spoke quickly. "You've devolved to human-level sex talk, Revard. Neither Hannah nor I had anything to do with the bomb. Why would we?"

"A craving for power. You've never fooled me with your pretense of just wanting to be an advisor. Mr. Vincent is gone. Edward Vincent is gone. Malazir is gone, Megaera and Sarah Hughes are gone, Hex is in hiding. If you'd managed to kill me and Parcell, you'd have been the last one standing amid fallen giants. You could name your own people to high posts, make your own deals with Vulcan and other suppliers. You could reign supreme."

"That's absurd."

"No, it's not," said a voice from behind Castiel.

The demon hadn't walked up behind him; he had suddenly appeared. He was tall, with a patrician face and white hair. In his former body, Hex had looked like a thug with a psychopathic smile; in the surgeon's stolen body, he looked like an intellectual with a psychopathic smile.

Castiel spun, but stayed where he was. Hannah leaped over beside him, brandishing her angel blade. Axel and Leo lifted their guns, the other guards unsheathed their angel blades.

Revard's arms, of course, were still locked in a trunk, but he nonetheless descended the two steps to the hall floor, looking questioningly at Hex.

"Axel and Leo," Castiel said, "take Hex captive. Ricardo and Xavier, back them up, and – "

"No, don't," Revard said.

Castiel took a side step, moving a little away from Hex and standing where he could see both Hex's and Revard's faces. Hannah moved with him, keeping her blade poised. "They're my employees, Revard."

"And I'm your general, Castiel. In fact, I'm going to say that I'm now your capo." Ricardo looked at Hex. "Speak."

"Sixteen days ago, Castiel asked to meet with me privately at my home. Of course, I assumed it had something to do with Mr. Vincent's security. During our meeting, I couldn't understand what he was saying at first. I'm plain-spoken, and Castiel is so – so deft and subtle in speech. But finally I realized he was saying that the Loyalist cause would be better off without Mr. Vincent. He was trying to recruit me to kill Mr. Vincent."

"So, of course," Castiel said, "you immediately told Mr. Vincent, and he immediately had me returned to Hell."

Hex responded to Castiel, but didn't look at him. He was engaging only with Revard, his eyes wide, his hands spread open. "I didn't dare. Mr. Vincent relied on Castiel even more than he relied on me. He might think I was trying to destroy Castiel for my own reasons. I thought about it, and then turned to Edward Vincent for help."

"Because you always got along so well with Edward," Castiel said dryly.

Again, Hex addressed the remark without looking at Castiel. "It's true, I never liked Edward. But one thing I knew – he was true to the Loyalist cause. He would realize the danger of a coup by Castiel. And he told me that he did. He told me that Castiel would be taken care of. The next night I left to perform a profound infernal rite, praying to our Lord Lucifer to protect Mr. Vincent. And that same night, Mr. Vincent was destroyed."

He dropped his head and his hands in a pose of defeated grief.

"So, of course, you reported this to Revard and Malazir – "

"Shut up, Castiel," Revard snarled. "I want to hear this."

"Why? It's fantasy."

Revard took a step toward Castiel, and Hannah aimed her blade at his heart. "Look at my face!" Revard bellowed. "This isn't fantasy! Someone did this to me, and I want them to pay!"

"And they will. But the one who actually did it should pay, and that is Hex."

Only now did Hex look at Castiel, shaking, looking enraged. "You liar! Hell-bait! I confronted you in your office about Mr. Vincent's death, and you denied everything, and you didn't care! You told me that everyone would blame me – ill-tempered irrational Hex, without an alibi! You smiled that slimy smile and told me that if I just accepted the situation, I'd profit by it!"

He looked back at Revard. "I needed confirmation. I kidnapped that serpent Edward and tried to force him to sign a confession about his conspiracy with Castiel. But Edward escaped me, and you know what happened."

"We do," Castiel said. "You slaughtered Edward and two humans, one of them simply for his meatsuit, and brought human attention to us, on a national scale."

"I knew Castiel would tell everyone that my righteous indignation was a mere spasm of blood lust, that he would turn everyone against me by seeming like the rational, reasonable one. I fled to Malazir for protection. She believed me. She placed a protective spell on me." He looked at Castiel furiously. "And then you had her killed just to break the protective spell! Our only direct contact with our Lord Lucifer! You had her killed!"

"This is nothing but self-serving lies." Hannah's voice wasn't outraged, simply bewildered, as she addressed Revard. "Can't you see that?"

Revard looked at her with contempt. "I can see why you say it. Go on, Hex."

"I knew then, it was Castiel or me. But after Malazir's death, everyone went on high security, everyone blamed me. I had to check my rage, be cautious. I staked out Castiel's home. I followed him to the meeting. I saw his aide pull him outside, hand him a phone. And then I saw the bomb go off."

Unexpectedly, Leo went down the stairs, his angel blade pointed at Hex. "Hex, you've always been a lousy liar, and you're getting no better with practice." He walked between Hex and Castiel, forcing Hex to move aside a bit, and stationed himself at Castiel's right side; Hannah was on his left. "Just give me the word, consigliere."

Castiel gave a small shake of his head. "I appreciate your loyalty, Leo. Hex may appear unarmed, but of course he's prepared to defend himself, and there's no point in having general bloodletting in my front hall. There must be a better way to resolve this."

"There is," Hex said. "Where's your aide? The one who gave you the phone?"

Lester was actually sitting on the staircase, effectively hidden behind Axel. He stood reluctantly. "Um – I'm – But there was a call! Maybe it wasn't actually Hannah, but there was actually a call!"

"I believe you." Hex was apparently trying to sound reassuring, and it was more unnerving than his anger. "What's your name – uh – "

Lester shot a quick look at Castiel as though asking for permission. "Um, Lester."

"Lester. Why don't you take that phone and call back the number that the supposed call came in from?"

Lester shot another look at Castiel, then pointed. "He has it."

"Of course he does. Make the call, Castiel."

"I don't take orders from you, Hex."

"But you will from me," Revard said. "If you want this evening to end well for you. Give me the phone."

Castiel glanced at Revard, looked back at Hex. "You've planted a phone in my home."

"How? You have excellent security, and that's even before you increased it a while ago. I'm powerful, Castiel, but I'm not invisible."

"Give me the phone, Castiel," Revard said, "or the general bloodletting you wanted to avoid will occur. I will order these men to take the phone from you, even if it means going through your two defenders."

"Three." Ricardo went past Revard and stood in front of Castiel. "You shouldn't talk to the consigliere like that. You may be a general, but Castiel is powerful too, and I'm not going to risk being burned to nothingness just because you're angry about your face."

"And Hex is gone," Castiel said, looking out the door.

Sure enough, Hex had vanished.

"He transported himself to the front gate, and unlocked the gate with his magic," Castiel said. "Odd that he wouldn't want to stay to see his theory proven."

"Not odd if he thinks he's in danger," Revard said. "Give me the phone, Castiel."

Castiel sighed. He stepped out from among his defenders, glanced at them long enough to say "Attack only if we're attacked," pulled the phone from his jacket pocket, and handed it to Revard. Revard looked at the calls received, turned, and extended the phone toward Lester. "Is this the number that called your phone just before the bomb exploded?"

Lester came down a couple of steps to look at it, nodded. "But Castiel wouldn't do anything like that. He doesn't need to. He's got plenty of – "

"Need is relative, now isn't it?" Revard touched the screen to reply to the call, and began walking around the first floor, listening.

The group fell into an odd little formation: Castiel and Revard walking side by side, their defenders walking behind and beside them, Lester bringing up the rear, no one saying a word.

A recorded voice came from Lester's phone. "The party at this number has not set up a voicemail account. Please try your call again later."

Revard disconnected, redialed. They finished walking the first floor, headed up the stairs, all still silent.

"The party at this number has not set up a voicemail – "

Revard disconnected, redialed.

A few steps down the second-floor hall, they heard a phone buzzing.

Hannah's pretty face contorted with anger and fear. The sound was coming from the room where the SavorStop security monitors had been installed.

It took a only few moments for Revard to find the phone. He reached behind a monitor, pried some tape loose, and produced the rasping, buzzing phone.

"The party at this number – "

Revard disconnected both phones.

"Revard." Hannah's voice was dangerously quiet. "You can't possibly think I'm stupid enough to leave incriminating evidence in an office where I spent the afternoon."

"Perhaps not. But perhaps Castiel is cruel enough to frame you." Revard looked at Axel and "his" other three guards. "Take him captive."

"No!" Hannah cried, and all the weapons were raised at once.

"Stop, all of you!"

Only a few of them had ever heard Castiel's voice sound like that – booming, resonant, sharp as a sword. It petrified them all.

"I won't be taken in and tortured for something I didn't do," Castiel told Revard. "You and your guards are free to leave and to find evidence that will prove my guilt, if you can. You don't need to fear my escape. I'm sure that Hex is telling his story to every Loyalist he can find, as you will. I will not be safe outside of my home until my innocence is proven, as it will be. You and – " he looked at Axel and the three others disdainfully – "your new employees are free to leave unmolested. Lester, give Revard the key to the Continental."

Lester looked slightly anguished, but did so.

"The car is in the first slot in the garage. We will accompany you downstairs, just to make sure that all of you get safely into the car and out the front gate. You may ransack the city for evidence of my guilt – other than the words of a known liar. I will try to find evidence of Hex's guilt from inside this building. We'll see what the results will be."

For a moment it seemed as though Revard might order an attack instead. Then he fixed his one eye on Castiel and said, "Yes. We'll see."

Castiel stepped aside, allowing Revard's party to pass. He, Hannah, Leo, and Ricardo followed them down; Lester dove into his room as they passed it.

And when the security gate had swung safely shut, Castiel closed the front door and turned to Ricardo. "Would you like Axel's position on my residential security staff?"

"Yes, sir!"

"You won't be able to get your personal property for a day or two at least, I'm afraid."

Ricardo brandished his angel blade. "All I need is this and the clothes on my back."

Castiel, in spite of everything, gave a tiny smile. "I like your attitude. We'll see if we can't supply you with food and drink as well." He turned serious again. "We are in complete lockdown as of now. No one in or out, no supplies in or out, we'll have to make do with what's on the premises." He looked at Leo. "Find Frederic and the housekeepers, tell them the situation."

Leo took off, and Cas turned to Hannah. "The only exceptions to the lockdown – "

"Devin and Inzur," she said.

"Yes. It now becomes urgent that they find Vulcan and bring him back here. They're on their way to LAX, but it's a huge airport. We need Parcell to get us specifics, and fast."

Hannah nodded and turned toward the elevator at the end of the hall, just as the elevator door slid open.

Parcell stepped out. "I've found Vulcan at LAX." Then, seeing everyone's expressions, "What happened?"

.

Dean had just taken his first sip of beer when his phone rang. He snatched it off the table. "Cas? What the hell happened?"

Cas, seated in his office, looked a little baffled. "Cas?"

"Nickname. Deal with it. What happened?"

The explanation took several minutes, during which time Sam quietly ordered chicken piccata for himself and a hamburger "without all the extra stuff on it" for Dean.

Eventually Dean said, "So basically, most of the Loyalists think that you kil – " he glanced around quickly – "you did all that. The capo, the – the blonde, and everyone today."

"Some of them certainly will," Castiel said. "It depends on how many of them feel that it would be advantageous to them if I were out of the way. That will be the deciding factor, not whether they actually believe I'm guilty. Until I get a better fix on how many feel like that, it would be unwise for me to leave."

"And that's why you're calling when you normally don't like phones."

"I actually think my phone is quite safe, I just like to narrow risk as much as possible. But I did feel it was important to communicate with you."

"Damn glad you did. It's good to hear your voice."

"It's good – to hear yours as well."

There was a pause as Castiel let out a little, pained breath. Dean sighed a little, his eyes sad, and Sam watched him.

Then he shook it off. "OK, there's got to be something we can do at this end."

"'We'?"

"Sammy and me," Dean said, and Castiel heard "Sam!" in the background.

"At the moment, there is nothing. Two of my security staff are looking for Vulcan at LAX. If he escapes before they find him, we'll have to launch a worldwide search. But if they can find him at the airport, he'll be brought back here and will confess to plotting with Hex."

"You mean – " Dean looked around again and kept his voice low. "He'll confess to triple murder of his fellow demons, not to mention the injuries and the way he's endangered you? I don't know, Cas. He's going to pick a story and stick to it, and it's going to take a lot of fancy cross-questioning for you to trip him up."

There was a pause. Then Castiel said softly, "You must not forget, Dean, that I am a demon."

And after another pause, "Yeah. You're right. OK. But is there something we can do?"

"Not at the moment. But when I hear what Vulcan has to say, there may be something. You will need to be ready for that."

"I was born ready," Dean said with his best Andy Garcia impression.

"Well. That's good to know."

"No, that's a laugh line, Cas. You're supposed to roll your eyes and say, 'Give me a break, Winchester.'"

A pause. "We'll consider it said."

"Call as soon as you can."

"I will," and they both disconnected.

"Forgot to get his phone number," Sam said.

"Damn!" Dean looked at the phone as if it had betrayed him.

Sam leaned forward and spoke quietly. "You told him it was good to hear his voice, and it hurt him."

Dean nodded. "I mean, crap. How are you supposed to get to know someone if you can't even say something halfway decent without punching him in the gut?"

Sam shook his head. Then he said, "On the other hand, if anyone can handle it, it's you. You've never had an easy relationship in your life."

"Well, that's true."

"So what's the story?"

Dean looked around again. "Give you the details later. But I'll tell you what we're going to do right now."

"Eat dinner. I'm starved."

"Me too. But then we're going like a bullet back to San Berdoo. We're going to pick up the cash, the weapons, the laptop, a couple days' changes of clothes. We're going to speed back here and set up a base near Cas. Maybe one of those bungalows at Chateau Marmont, plenty of privacy if Cas needs us to do something interesting. We're going to get as much sound sleep as it's possible for you to get. Tomorrow we'll fill the tank, clean the weapons, do some research, figure out how to lay down a devil's trap in a hotel room. We're going to the mattresses."

Sam's mouth quirked "I think the Chateau Marmont already has mattresses."

"You know what I mean."

.

When Devin and Inzur found Vulcan at the airport, waiting for a plane that would begin boarding in ten minutes, he tried to dismiss them, saying he'd attend to their concerns when he got back from vacation. That ended when Inzur slid an angel blade up the back of Vulcan's gray cardigan sweater, resting the point against the base of Vulcan's skull, while Devin played drunk, looping an arm around Vulcan's shoulder and shambling beside and behind him, so no one saw what was happening. "Try and escape through the mouth," he said in Vulcan's ear, "and we'll have your head on a pike before you can do it." Then he gave a drunken-sounding laugh and clapped Vulcan's shoulder.

Vulcan tried to reason with them as Devin started the car. Inzur waved his hand, slamming Vulcan into the back seat, crashing his head against the car's ceiling, stunning him. While Devin put a special accessory in the car's cigarette-lighter jack and waited, Inzur slammed Vulcan into the car ceiling again. When the accessory popped out of the lighter, Devin took it and turned on the seat. Inzur grabbed one of Vulcan's hands and yanked it forward, and Devin pressed into Vulcan's palm the brand that would seal him inescapably into his body.

Vulcan tried pleading as they drove to Bel Air, and by the time Devin pulled up to the front door of Castiel's home, he was desperately trying to bribe them with astronomical sums. Only when they pulled him out of the car did he physically start resisting, and they had to drag him.

Ricardo opened the door of the interrogation room and the three of them handcuffed him to a chair. As a demon, he could have broken the cuffs in a few seconds, but he didn't have that time.

Parcell, wearing a soft burgundy shirt, his face and hair clean, stepped into the room, looked at the ceiling over Vulcan's head, and said a few Latin words. A devil's trap scorched into the ceiling, and now Vulcan was both trapped in a body and powerless; he may as well have been human.

"That was amazing!" Ricardo gasped in open admiration. "Can you teach me how to do that?"

Parcell looked at him coolly. "Once you put in a century or so as a sorcerer, yes, I can."

"What, Parcell, how – what's going on?" Vulcan gasped.

Parcell swiveled his gaze to Vulcan. "The question you want to ask is, How am I alive? And why am I wearing a borrowed shirt?" He looked back wryly at the three guards. "It's the only shirt of Castiel's that has any color at all. Someone must have given it to him. I wonder who."

Devin chuckled. The other two guards remained straight-faced.

Parcell pointed. "What's your name?"

"Ricardo."

"Ricardo, tell him we're ready. Devin, Inzur, go to Leo and get your security assignments."

Devin and Inzur walked out the door; Ricardo ran.

"Parcell." Vulcan was desperately trying to remain calm. "I don't know what's going on. Devin and Inzur wouldn't tell me anything. I don't know what you think I've done – "

"I think you're a mercenary who'd supply any weapon to any maniac," Parcell said. "What are they going to find when they eventually open your abandoned luggage, Vulcan? Gold, cash, gems? All three?"

"Please, Parcell. Please. I don't know what you're talking about."

"I'm not happy to be here either. But thanks to you, Castiel needs an objective witness to – well, practically to eating dinner, much less questioning a suspect. Everyone else in the house is an employee of Castiel's, so that means I'm the only objective one here. Not to mention that, also thanks to you, anyone who sticks his head out of Castiel's house is apt to be murdered by Hex. Or by Revard. Oh, yes, he's alive too, Vulcan. And I'd say we should just toss you to him, except – "

He paused, smiling, and Vulcan stared at him.

"Have you ever seen Castiel when he's really angry? Most haven't. I've only seen it once before, years ago, and I'll tell you, given the choice, I'd take my chances with Revard."

There was the sound of footsteps in the hall.

"But you don't have the choice," Parcell said, still smiling, and Castiel walked in the door.

He was wearing his coat again. His step was easy, his hands and shoulders relaxed. His face was cold, almost expressionless, except for one raised eyebrow.

Vulcan settled a little in the chair, swallowed. He seemed to realize that this was the end game. "Castiel. Thank the Morning Star. Tell me what this is about."

Castiel stood directly in front of Vulcan, tilted his head a bit, and looked down at him, meeting his gaze fully.

After a moment, Vulcan looked away.

"Who hired you to build the bomb, Vulcan?"

"What bomb?"

Parcell let out a little huff of laughter.

"The plot wasn't yours," Castiel said. "You may not have even known who the targets were. That may be taken into consideration. If you don't try my patience."

"If a bomb went off – and it hurt Loyalists – it was probably Terrestrials."

Castiel shook his head.

Then he looked upward, walking in a circle around Vulcan. Vulcan's gaze jerked up and down, from the devil's trap on the ceiling to Castiel's face. He pulled forward as Castiel walked in back of him.

When Castiel was in front of Vulcan again, he said, "Ignem."

Hellfire leaped down from the circular border of the devil's trap, a curved sheet of flame that roared and flared. Parcell took a step back, looking impressed. Vulcan tried to shudder away from it in all directions, jerking around in the chair.

Castiel looked up at the ceiling, and the flames stopped.

Vulcan made a little noise. He was sweating and a spark was sizzling out on his sweater. His eyes were wide. "I know – Castiel, I know you can burn me, I know that. But I can't tell you what I don't know, even if, even if you consume me in fire. I don't know."

Castiel shifted his gaze to Parcell. "That is a limitation to having a talent with fire. Eventually the target will be consumed, and is of no more use. But some years ago, I learned how to stimulate nerve endings so that they feel like they're being burned, without actually burning them. This means that pain can be sustained indefinitely."

He looked at Vulcan's foot.

Vulcan gave a sharp scream, looking down at his foot in disbelief. He shook it, stamped it on the floor, yelled again.

Then he sucked in a gasp of relief and looked up at Castiel.

Castiel's voice remained quiet. "Imagine how much that will hurt when it's coursing down your spine. And there will be no end to it."

"Please don't. Please, Castiel. I really don't know anything about a bomb. I don't."

Castiel's eyes went black. He looked at Vulcan's crotch.

Vulcan screamed again. He doubled over as much as he could, he strained against the handcuffs. The chair zoomed from side to side, slamming against the invisible barriers of the devil's trap, and then toppled, leaving Vulcan writhing and screaming on his back.

Then he gasped, gave a couple of more short yells and a soft wail disrupted by choking.

Castiel went to the very edge of the devil's trap, looking with his shark's eyes down at Vulcan on the floor. "Who hired you to build the bomb?"

"No one." Vulcan pulled in a long wheezing breath. He didn't even have strength to set the chair upright. "Hex ordered four angel blades. I thought they were for use against Terrestrials. Someone else must have made them into shrapnel. I didn't know. I didn't know."

The black eyes shifted to Parcell. "Did you mention angel-blade shrapnel to him?"

Parcell shook his head, just once.

"What else?" Vulcan knew he'd made a mistake, it was all over his face, and he was desperately trying to correct. "What else would – "

Castiel took a couple of steps and looked down at the back of Vulcan's neck.

Vulcan's back arched spasmodically. For a moment he couldn't even scream, eyes wide with shock, making a gurgling sound.

Then the screams began, long roaring wails, a desperate baby's cries for help cut with, "Please no, please no, please no – "

Parcell looked away.

Vulcan kicked and bellowed, and now it was like he was trying to form words but couldn't.

The he gave a gasping despairing groan, sucked in a breath and let it out, moaning, slobbering, crying. His back relaxed.

"Who hired you to build the bomb?"

"Lester," Vulcan whispered. "Lester did."

Castiel raised his head. Parcell looked slightly surprised.

Castiel looked back down. "Who is he working for?"

"No one. He didn't tell me anyone. He said he was finally going to get the recognition he deserved. Move up," Vulcan sobbed, "move up a couple of rungs."

Parcell looked dubious. "That would require Hannah's and Castiel's deaths, not mine or Sarah Hughes'."

"The end result is the same," Castiel said, "if Hannah and I are framed for the deaths of the others. But I believe that the other deaths are advantageous to someone."

"Whoever's using Lester," Parcell said, and Castiel nodded.

He looked, still with shark's eyes, down at Vulcan. "When did Lester come to you?"

"Two days after Malazir's death."

"You put the bomb together in four days?"

"I had what I needed on hand." His cheek pressed to the floor, Vulcan rolled his head, trying to meet Castiel's pitiless gaze. "I can still be useful to the Loyalists."

"Parcell, can you put that chair upright in the devil's trap? This is annoying."

Parcell focused on the chair, moved his hand slightly. It tipped back up on its legs, and Vulcan gave a grunt of pain as his back rocked against the chair's back.

"If you had equipment for a bomb on hand," Parcell asked, "why did you need to steal an angel blade and bullets from Mr. Vincent's armory?"

Vulcan's eyes widened, and he shook his head, tiny tic-like jerks. "I didn't. I swear I didn't. I don't need to. Look at my workshop. I've got plenty of those things there, I wouldn't need to steal anyone else's."

Castiel took a breath, but before he could say anything Parcell spoke. "It's as you said, Castiel. Two killers."

With a ghost of a smile, Castiel nodded, and his eyes went back to human. "How did Lester pay you?"

"The down payment in gold. I shipped it on ahead. The rest was a cache of Euros, hidden. He said he'd probably be busy after the explosion, so he'd phone me with how to find the cache." He gave a shaken sigh. "I should have left it, got on an earlier plane."

"We would have found you. Parcell, I have no further questions. Do you?"

Parcell smiled dryly. "I can't think of anything. But doubtless the infernal torturers will think of something to ask."

Vulcan screamed. He stared at Castiel. "Please please no. I can't do that again, I can't go through it, I told you everything, please – "

Hellfire engulfed him. He didn't even have time to scream again before he was a heap of glowing bones lying on a pile of burned wood, and then merely a lumpy, charred black streak and melted handcuffs.

Parcell looked at Castiel with startled disapproval. "That was merciful."

Castiel stood still.

"Castiel?"

He raised his head as though the action would snap his neck. "There would have been no point. He'd told us everything. And I don't want one of our helpful human exorcists to know about this room. A quick destruction was – most logical."

"And it just struck me," Parcell said with sudden amusement, "that when Lester sees this he'll be very motivated to cooperate."

"We can't arrest Lester. Hex and Revard will claim that I'm simply framing Lester for my own crimes and that I've bribed you into abetting me. I want to be cleared, completely, in such a way that even Revard can have no question about my, or Hannah's, innocence."

"How?"

"To begin with, we will go upstairs now, call the staff together, and tell them that Vulcan confessed nothing. He insisted to the end that he had nothing to do with the bomb. I grew tired of his resistance and destroyed him in a fit of anger."

"Mm," Parcell said dubiously. "That doesn't sound like you."

Castiel looked at him and, even with human eyes, his expression was unnerving. "It's been a bad day. They'll believe it."

Parcell nodded.

"We will tell the staff as a whole to prepare themselves for a siege until we can resolve the issue. We will not single out Lester in any way. I want him to feel confident that he is under no suspicion."

"And then?"

"And then I want him to confess, completely, publicly, and under no duress."

Parcell looked amused and intrigued. "How?"

"Give me a day," Castiel said. "I'll think of something."


	7. Chapter 7

Lester was washing the Cadillac CT6 when he saw Castiel's reflection in the windshield and jumped.

Castiel, smiling a little, put a finger over his lips and spoke very quietly. "I'm sorry to startle you, but I didn't want to send for you or have anyone see you coming into the office. I need you to do something with the utmost secrecy."

Lester dropped the wet cloth and started rolling down his sleeves. He spoke in the same quiet tone. "What do you need?"

"There is some danger involved in this. This time only, I am granting you permission to refuse."

Lester's eyes grew wide, and he nodded.

"The lack of a confession from Vulcan puts us in an untenable situation. I will not remain penned in this house indefinitely, playing defense. We're going on the offensive. We're going to kill Hex."

Lester gave Castiel a shaky smile. "You want me – "

Cas laughed. It sounded a little contemptuous, as though he thought Lester incapable of anything risky, and that was deliberate. "No, Lester, I don't want you to try to kill him. I said it was dangerous, not a suicide mission. The dangerous part is that I need you to leave the house tonight, evading both Hex's and Revard's watchers, and meet the hit man who will kill Hex."

"Who is it?"

"I don't know a name, only a phone number. Mr. Vincent used to use him for personal missions that required more discretion than Hex is capable of. I've set up a meeting for tonight. He will look in the car window and say, 'I've always wanted a Cadillac,' and you will respond, 'I used to have a great Continental.' He will then get in the car and negotiate terms with you. You may give him as much information as he requires – as I said, he is discreet, and often thought of things that even Mr. Vincent hadn't. You will bring one hundred thousand dollars with you as the up-front payment, but try to negotiate for less. Do you have any questions?"

Lester looked absorbed; perhaps he was thinking of questions. Then he said, "No. I'll get him lined up. Where's the meeting? What time?"

Castiel told him.

.

It was a sad, grim part of town with abandoned houses and broken-down cars. Dean left the Impala under one of the few working streetlights and murmured, "Be right back, baby," as he walked away.

A gaunt woman walked into the pried-open door of a house with notices posted on the windows; she didn't look at him. Dean turned the corner and headed for a car parked near, but not under, a streetlight down the block. "Oculi mortui caeci sunt," he mumbled as he approached, just in case.

He rested his hand on the open front passenger window and leaned over to say, "I've always wanted a Cadillac."

Lester, in the driver's seat, just stared for a moment. Then he erupted. "What the hell, you're a human!"

Dean shot his gaze to the side as if checking with a third party whether Lester had actually said something that stupid. Then he looked back into the car. "What the Earth, you're a demon. Gee, I've always wanted a Cadillac."

"Um – Yes. I used to, um, have a great. Continental."

"Oscar-worthy," Dean said, and got into the car.

"I just – no one told me you were human. I need to be sure, you know, that you can handle it."

"The consigliere choosing me didn't convince you enough?"

Lester smiled. "You play your cards right, you'll be working for someone more powerful than the consigliere. For a lot more money."

Dean thought fast, while staying in character. "The consigliere's new capo? Or is there a little double-cross going on?"

"You're looking at a quarter-million-dollar job. Do you care?"

"I don't care, but I don't like unexpected changes. You tell me that all of a sudden the client's changed and the job has changed, you're going to have to convince me that you're not some kind of – demonic undercover cop, or something."

"And you're going to have to convince me that you're capable of handling – aech!"

That was a rough approximation of the sound Lester made as Dean, in a move he'd practiced all day, swiftly slid the donkey jawbone from a sheath under his jacket.

"Convinced?"

"That's a tempered jawbone! Where did you get that?"

"Demon in Texas." Casually, Dean let it rest to his right on the seat. "Part payment for a job I did. Now do you want to do some damn business?"

"Well. Yes." Lester was just now noticing that Dean was wearing latex gloves. "So. There have been some status changes going on in the demonic realm."

"I know a lot of demons are getting killed. I guess that's a status change."

"Yes, well, we didn't start this. But we're going to finish it."

"Who's 'we'?"

"My partner and me. In a few weeks, we'll be the ones that the Loyalists answer to. If you want work, you'll give me your number."

"So you're going to be the new consigliere? Who's going to be the new capo?"

Lester smiled smugly. "A very powerful demon. That's all you need to know."

"Ye-eaahh." Dean drew it out. "See, Lester, here's the thing. I hear you're a damn good driver and a guy looking to move up in the world, both good things, but you're talking about killing high-placed demons to take control of an army, and let's be honest, your resume doesn't really include that kind of action. What happens with guys like you – just being honest here – is all of a sudden you realize you're over your head and in trouble, and you need to cut a deal with someone, and selling out guys like me is the way guys like you get out of trouble."

"I'm not over my head."

"I'm telling you, it's not an insult. L.A. could use more good drivers. But when it comes to – "

"I'm not just a driver! You know, I don't need you. I could hire – "

"Calm down. You don't want to alienate me when you just told me you're planning some kind of coup against your boss, do you? Look, you needed to be convinced that a human could handle a demon. I convinced you. Now I just want to be convinced that you can handle the kind of planning that moving up the ranks this way requires, you're not just useful in a car chase."

Lester glared at him for a moment. Then he said, "Well. You heard about the bomb that killed two high-ranking Loyalists day before yesterday?"

Dean raised his eyebrows. "That was you?"

Lester nodded, looking pleased.

Dean beckoned with his fingers. "Well, come on. Convince me."

"I found Vulcan. I hired him to make it."

"Where'd you get that kind of money?"

"My partner. He's the money man."

"Best kind of partner. Who'd you get to plant the bomb?"

"I did it. Myself."

"Yeah, that makes sense, you had access to the place beforehand."

"Actually I didn't. I took the bomb in right under Castiel's nose. As soon as he told me we were going to check phones and weapons at the door, I put the bomb in an empty trunk and brought it in. I held onto it until Castiel went to search the meeting room, just to make sure he wouldn't open it for some reason. When he went upstairs to check security there, I blinded the security cameras and put the bomb in the meeting room."

"Cool under pressure, that's good."

"You don't know. Castiel has never understood my capabilities."

"Yeah, but of all the mayhem, the guy you wanted to get killed was the only one who walked away without a scratch."

"That wasn't a mistake." Lester smiled. "That was deliberate. Now everyone thinks he did it."

"Well, but if you're the one who pulled him away from the bomb, you look as guilty as he does."

"Not if his second aide called me and insisted that Castiel leave the house to listen to the call."

Dean laughed softly. "Did you fake him into calling? Or did you make the whole thing up?"

"Well." Lester was basking in Dean's approval. "A call was made."

"From your partner?"

"No, from me. I called my own phone from a second phone. I answered my own phone, let 'em both run a couple minutes, disconnected the second phone and put it in my pocket."

"And then – "

"Like I say, we wanted to make it look like his other aide called, so I hid the second phone in her office as soon as we got back to Castiel's house."

"His other aide's a girl?"

"You could say that. You could also say snippy self-important bitch. And now she and Castiel are both walking dead. Everyone thinks they did the bomb. Everyone's even starting to think that they killed Mr. Vincent and Malazir, and Hex didn't even do those!"

"Hex, that's your partner?"

For a moment Lester seemed to realize he'd made a mistake. Then he settled into a look reminiscent of a sixth-grader with a secret. "Maybe."

Dean nodded. "Now that's a guy with a resume."

"He's like me. Everyone underestimates him. Everyone thinks he's just a hothead and everyone thinks I'm just an errand boy."

"And how surprised are they going to be when the errand boy and the hothead are the consigliere and the capo?"

Lester chuckled. "Pretty damn surprised. There are going to be a lot of demons who are going to be a lot nicer to me from now on. Take my word for it."

"Sounds like it. So – you just agreed to meet me to keep up the front with Castiel? 'Cause that's not a problem, but I am going to charge you for my time."

"No. I have a job for you. Did Castiel tell you he was sick of being defensive and wanted to go on the offense when he called you?"

"No. Just said he had a job. Gave me the time and place of the meet, and the password."

"Well, that's what he told me. 'We're going on the offensive, we're going to kill Hex!'" Lester chuckled. "As though he could. But I'm pretty tired of sitting still myself. I want you to get rid of Castiel."

Dean looked thoughtful. "I can do that. Just to warn you, though: That way the bomb frame-up doesn't work."

"It does if you make it look like Hannah killed him."

"Hannah – that's Miss Snippy Self-Important? OK, yeah. Framing a third party costs extra, but I've had experience. Is Hex willing to pony up for that?"

"He will be."

"So the story is, they killed Vincent so Castiel could take over, but he had competition from other Loyalists. So he and Hannah killed the sorceress, what's-her-name, and then planted a bomb to get rid of the others. Hannah called Castiel to get him out of the house before the bomb went off. Then Castiel and Hannah had some kind of falling out, maybe over money, she killed him, and now she needs to get sent back for some infernal correction."

"Exactly. But her motive is better than money. She's in love with him."

Dean snorted. "Sorry, Les, no one will buy it. I've never known a demon to be in love with anyone."

"We can form attachments. We can get passionate. Maybe it's not the self-sacrificing thing humans like to talk about, but we can have desires." He met Dean's eyes. "You know. In the way that psychopathic humans can."

Dean drew a breath. "OK. Point taken. So the idea is, he cheated on her and she killed him?"

Lester grinned. "No. The idea is, she did all this so he'd love her, but he still preferred males, and she finally snapped."

Dean laughed softly. "Never knew that about the consigliere."

"He's quiet about his personal life, but it's known. And everyone also knows about the way Hannah feels."

"Why doesn't she just grab herself a good-looking male meatsuit?" Dean asked.

"Most of us have a gender we prefer. We can possess almost anyone, but most demons feel more comfortable in a meatsuit of one kind or another. Hannah wants to be female. And she wants Castiel to love her."

"Sucks to be her. All right. We pre-plant a little evidence, Castiel meets a sad fate, Hannah gets exorcised back to Hell screaming the whole time that she didn't do it, and no one's surprised by any of it. You and Hex take over the Loyalists."

"And you walk away with two hundred fifty thousand dollars."

"That's the best part. Almost the best part. Did you get all that?"

Lester looked confused. "The point is, did _you_ get all that."

A car turned the corner, approaching behind the Cadillac, and flashed its lights.

"I wasn't talking to you, Lester." Dean gripped the handle of the tempered jawbone next to him and swung the point hard into Lester's gut.

He looked so surprised.

Then his eyes and skull flashed orange and he slumped, expressionless.

"Doin' you a favor," Dean said. "Revard would've sent you back to Hell."

The Impala pulled up next to the Cadillac. Dean pulled the blade out of Lester, put it back in the sheath, got out of the Cadillac and crossed over to the Impala, jumping in quickly. "What do you think?"

Sam, at the wheel of the Impala, pointed at Dean's chest. Dean nodded, pulled up his shirt, and disconnected the microphone wires as Sam drove away.

"Video's not great," Sam said. "Like we thought, you couldn't very well get in the car, grab a pin on your jacket, and then hold perfectly still. And it was dark. But you can see his face clearly often enough, his facial expressions. The way he grinned when he said Hex was 'maybe' his partner. And the audio's clear as a bell."

"Good. I love having a personal electronics expert. Did you have any trouble? I was worried about leaving my baby and my brother and a laptop sitting back there."

"I note the order of priority. No, actually, it was quiet."

"Good." Dean looked down at his left arm and leg. "I don't think I have any blood where it'll rub off in here, but I'm going to have to get rid of the shirt and jacket and sheath."

"My guess is, even if by some chance the police traced DNA to you, Castiel could whisk it away. Either in a mob-guy way or in a demon way."

"So how long until the video's ready for its world premiere?"

"A few hours. I want to go over it moment by moment, make sure there's no random reflection or anything that shows your face. Then I'm going to alter your voice. Then we'll send it to all those phone numbers Cas gave you."

"I oughta call him, tell him that if he can stay alive for a few more hours, he's off the hook."

Dean reached inside his jacket for his phone, then pulled out his hand. There was a smear of blood on it.

"Is there a chance I'm a psychopath?" he asked.

Sam shot an incredulous look at him, then looked back fast at the road. "Why would you even ask that?"

"Makin' idle conversation."

Sam, still looking incredulous, shook his head. "Well, let's see. You were a great son to Dad – "

"I fought with him a lot."

"Not as much as I did. And psychopaths don't get mad, they get even. Besides, Dean, let's face it. I miss Dad, I miss the good things about him, but he wasn't easy to live with. You're a great brother – Oh, and, by the way, you risked your own life for six months to get me free from a demon. Oh yeah, and you only stole from some of the deadliest people in the country because you felt guilty stealing from honest people. You told me about that scene at the hospital where Hex killed those people, the man sitting in the lobby crying. You acted all stoic and tough-guy, but I could tell it tore you up."

"Still tears me up," Dean said.

"When Cas got in trouble you could've said, 'Too bad, well, I did my part of the deal,' and taken off. You didn't because you care about him and you want him to be safe. So why the hell would you ask that? Because of what Lester said? You know, if you convince a demon that you're a psychopath, it doesn't make you a psychopath, it makes you a good actor."

"Yeah." Dean rubbed the blood on his hand onto his shirt, under the jacket. "It's just – This is getting easier."

There was a moment's silence.

Then, "Well, yeah. Normal people can get used to stuff. Guys who, normal guys who wind up working in concentration camps, things like that. They start out thinking, 'God, I can't stand this, I'm leaving even if my family starves,' and they wind up thinking, 'I wish that jerk would stop screaming, hurts my ears.'"

Sam got onto a freeway on-ramp, and they drove in silence for a few minutes.

"One more," Dean said. "I have to get Hex. He killed two humans, and it's not like the cops will be able to run him in and try him. Then – "

He thought for a moment more. Sam cast a glance at him, but didn't speak.

"I think we need to start working on our exit strategy, especially if we need to clear out fast. Decide what are the essentials we need to take, how to get stuff into the car fast, where the three of us meet, what route we take from there to get out of town."

"You're assuming Castiel will come with us."

"Yes. I am."

Sam nodded, but didn't say anything.

Then Dean said, "The car handles great, doesn't it?"

"Like a dream. It's a pleasure to drive."

"Yeah. Don't get used to it."

Sam grinned, and after a moment Dean did too.

.

Parcell didn't have a phone, but his new aide did, and he showed the video to Parcell as soon as it came over. Parcell watched it with a slight smile that broadened at Lester's murder. Hannah was one of the first to get it; she hurried to the monitor room to stare at video surveillance, her face actually red from embarrassment, but a savage satisfaction in her eyes. Mr. Sanchez, the new director of weaponry, called to tell Castiel that he'd never doubted Castiel's innocence, and to ask for the hit man's phone number. Mrs. Vincent called from Tahiti to say she'd never doubted Castiel's innocence. Sarah Hughes' attorney called to discuss the disposition of the controlling shares of Sucro from Hughes' estate, and to tell Castiel that he'd never doubted his innocence.

Castiel had just hung up from that call when Detectives Edwards and Torres came to tell him that Lester's body had been found in Castiel's car. Since Lester was Cas' driver, there was nothing inherently suspicious about that, but this time the detectives took Castiel in for hours of questioning, eventually releasing him with obvious frustration.

Cas didn't have a current number for Hex, not surprisingly, and probably wouldn't have sent him the video anyway. He did send it to Revard, and was most curious about what his response would be.

The day after the video hit and was passed around to almost every Loyalist in Southern California – none of whom, of course, would have deigned to show it to human police – Castiel quite deliberately drove by himself to lunch at a popular Italian restaurant. He sat in a window booth and took his time savoring a glass of merlot, talking for a moment with a Loyalist from San Francisco who was in town on business and who stopped by his table to tell him she'd never doubted his innocence.

He'd just finished using a pasta spoon to perfectly wrap spaghetti around his fork when a tall person bulked in his peripheral vision, and he looked up.

Revard was standing at the table across from Castiel. He was dressed in red and black. There was a patch over his missing eye. Thanks to demonic magic, the slashes to his face were no longer open wounds, but they were scars. He looked like the hero of a movie about vengeance.

"This is quite a show of confidence on your part, Castiel," he said, looking around.

"As someone whose innocence has been proven beyond question, I have nothing to fear."

Revard looked amused. "Innocence?"

Castiel returned the amusement. "In matters related to – our last Council meeting, at least. Would you like to sit down?"

Revard did, and Castiel ate his forkful of spaghetti.

"I dislike admitting when I'm wrong," Revard said. "But in this case, I'm forced to."

Castiel shrugged. "The frame was put together by someone with access to most aspects of my life. You had just sustained grievous injuries. I don't blame – Would you like something to drink?"

The waitress had suddenly appeared at their table, looking at Revard with frank fascination. "Green beer at a special price today," she said cheerfully, "or maybe a glass of wine?"

Revard was looking a shade horrified, and Castiel said, "A glass of this, perhaps," tapping the rim of his glass. "It's very good."

She left – reluctantly – and Revard said, "I understand that it's St. Patrick's Day. But why is their beer green? This is an Italian restaurant."

"I don't understand either."

Revard swung his head wide, glancing around with one eye. "At least we'll truly look like humans, sitting here glugging alcohol."

"I think a celebration is in order."

"Not until our mutual friend is dealt with."

Castiel nodded, breaking a breadstick. "Fortunately, we know exactly what his next move will be. He wants you dead. You're still alive."

"And you as well."

"Yes, but I lack charisma. Given the choice between following Hex and following me, there would be real division among most de – among most of us. Whereas you radiate an overt power that is a strong draw." He looked rueful. "Even to my own security staff. You're a far greater threat to him."

Revard nodded. "Then I think we know how to draw him out."

Castiel did another perfect twist of spaghetti onto his fork. "Carefully," he said. "Carefully."

.

In a little-hiked part of the Angeles National Forest near – but not very near – Mount Wilson Observatory, there was an unexpected clearing about 50 yards wide. One side of the clearing dropped suddenly down into a forested ravine; the rest was surrounded by pine trees climbing ridges, the nearest place anyone could hide. Anyone in the middle of the clearing would have 25 yards' warning even of an oncoming drone, which for demons was plenty.

It had been generally agreed that this clearing was neutral territory. Demons who were fighting would meet there under a temporary truce to make peace between themselves or to deal with matters not related to their disagreement. Demons being themselves, the truce conditions were violated fairly often. But since the war between the Loyalists and Terrestrials had erupted, both sides had found this neutral space useful, so the neutrality hadn't been violated for months.

Terrestrials, with their enjoyment of comfort, had placed a bench in the center of the clearing. Loyalists sneered at them for not being able to stand for a few hours, and then used the bench.

Castiel had hiked much of the way up from the overlook where the car was parked, but took the last quarter-mile in jumps, vanishing and reappearing ahead. The gift was a great time-saver, and not every demon had it – he, Hannah, Hex, Revard, a few of Cas' fellow Terrestrials, and the King of the Crossroads Demons were among those who did.

Cas sat on the bench, opened a leather folder with a tablet of paper inside, produced a pen and began writing. The bench's back, logically, faced the ravine, the least likely origin of an attack, but Castiel's gaze swept the area all around as he pretended to write. It was a warm sunny afternoon, even at this elevation, but Cas kept his coat on; it hid the angel blade.

He was aware of Revard's presence a few seconds before Revard appeared next to him. Revard also swept the clearing and the pine forest beyond with his gaze, murmuring, "So far so good."

"Indeed."

Revard raised his voice a bit. "Shall we discuss the terms of a cessation of hostilities?"

Castiel nodded, angling himself and the notebook toward Revard as the other demon sat down.

Revard looked over his shoulder, lowered his voice. "I have four guards hidden in the trees, all with angel-bullet guns. Those four, in addition to our own powers, should be adequate to meet whatever Hex brings. He's not popular since that video started being passed around."

"Really? I'd have thought it would appeal to power-seekers."

"Hex fell in their estimation when they realized he'd conspired with Lester. They feel that Hex must be desperate to have chosen such a – as they would say here – such a loser."

"Still, we need to be prepared for anything."

"Oh, yes." Revard looked across the ravine below as Castiel looked into the trees on the other side of the clearing. "Speaking of security guards, I brought Axel here today as one of mine. When this is over, I am willing to kill him as a good-faith gesture to you."

"You don't need to do that on my behalf. None of us can be trusted, but security personnel should have at least some degree of loyalty. I was glad to have disloyalty revealed in four of my guards. But you may want to take any measures necessary to guard your own safety."

"I think Axel will be all right. He wanted, and still wants, the glamor of working for the general. He was very pleased with his jacket lined with magically-reinforced Kevlar."

"Do all your guards have that?"

"All of the ones hidden in the trees here do," Revard said wryly. "Did you bring any security?"

"No. I knew you'd bring several guards, and I thought if we filled the woods it would be a giveaway to Hex's people."

Revard smiled. They continued to talk, each of them looking slightly over his right shoulder, so that between them they had a sweeping view of the area. "To make this look convincing, we should actually do some business," Revard said. "I know that Ms. Hughes' human cover was complete enough that she had a will, but I don't know its contents."

"I do. I've spoken to her attorney. Her home and personal property are to be sold, and the proceeds donated to an anti-war charity."

Revard chuckled. "I never realized she had a sense of humor."

"In a recently added codicil, she returns the controlling shares of Sucro to the company."

"Ah. Then I suggest that I buy those shares and name you as Chief Executive Officer, giving you the chance to buy them from me in installments, in exchange for your public acknowledgment of me as leader of the Loyalist cause and Loyalist forces. I would, of course, require the advice and assistance you gave to Mr. Vincent."

"That's a generous offer."

Revard shrugged. "To be honest, Castiel, the business side bores me. I'm glad to know – "

A gunshot resounded somewhere. It was hard to tell from where, but both of them leaped to their feet and looked toward the trees as Axel ran out of them. His gun dangled loosely from his right hand, which he held straight down; his left hand was clamped over a bloody wound on the back of his gun hand. "Run!" he yelled. "They're all dead! Go now!"

"Where's Hex?" Revard snapped, drawing his gun as Castiel drew his angel blade.

Axel stopped, gasping, raised his right hand and shot Revard in the forehead.

Revard dropped, orange light flashing in his eyes.

Castiel pointed at Axel and said, "Igne – " But a burst of force cut him off in mid-word, slamming him back onto the bench and knocking the blade away from him. It was Hex, leaping into the space behind Castiel. The demon in the surgeon's body drove an angel blade into Castiel's forearm, pinning it to the bench's back. Cas gestured at Hex, but Hex stayed planted where he was, grinning, as his other two guards came running out of the woods.

Castiel cried out in pain and tried to pull the angel blade out of his arm. Hex held him at gunpoint. "Don't do that, Castiel. If you so much as touch that blade I'll have to shoot you, and we'll both be worse off. I want to talk to you."

One of Hex's guards was standing behind Castiel, and extended something small and wiry over Cas' head at Hex. Hex touched it and its tip burst into flame; he blew out the flame and the tip glowed as the guard pulled it back, holding it by its handle. Castiel realized what it was just as the guard jerked his collars down and planted the brand on the back of Cas' shoulder near his neck.

He yelled again and tried to pull away, but Hex grabbed his head, and when he tried to wrench his right arm away, it slid more deeply onto the angel blade. The only thing he could do was strike up and back, hard, with his left fist.

The guard holding the brand released it immediately, staggering backward and swearing. "Little pissant broke my nose!"

"Stanch the blood and see me later, Guerin. I'm a doctor." Hex cackled, scooped up the branding device, and pushed Cas' head forward. "The brand's just fine. You're sealed in that body, Castiel. You can't escape and you're powerless, at the moment." He jiggled the blade cheerfully, and Cas gasped with pain. "Devil's trap etched onto the hilt. They found a bullet like that in Mr. Vincent. I wonder who thought of that? Edward wasn't clever enough."

Castiel looked at Axel. "Are all of Revard's other guards dead?"

Axel nodded. "Angel blade through the throat. Too bad they didn't have Kevlar ski masks."

"And the gunshot – "

"Just to make my dramatic entrance more convincing." Axel looked at his sticky red gun hand. "Did that with a blade. I'll be glad to get it cleaned off."

"Have you always been with Hex?"

"Actually, only for a few days," Hex said impatiently. He sat down beside Cas, and the three security guards gathered around them, looking in all directions. "During that incident in your hallway, I thought I saw something in Axel, a willingness to do anything to be on the winning side. I simply convinced him that I was going to win. You'll talk to _me_ , Castiel, or you'll die here with your arm still impaled."

"I don't think we have anything to say to each other."

He took Cas' chin and moved his head so that they were looking directly at each other. "Not even if I offered you twice what Mr. Vincent was paying you for doing the same work?"

"You don't have that kind of money."

"But I will. And very soon. I'll be the head of Sucro and the general of our army." He chuckled. "Maybe I'll even take over the project of raising Lord Lucifer. I've never liked Parcell."

Castiel thought for a moment. Her jerked his chin out of Hex's grip. "If you accomplish – "

Hex grabbed Cas' chin and forced his head around again. He really wanted to look into Castiel's eyes.

Castiel's right arm moved slightly, and he gasped in pain. Then he said, "If you accomplish one of those tasks – obtaining the controlling shares of Sucro, gathering loyalty oaths from our military officers, or making a significant step toward raising Lord Lucifer – I will swear my loyalty to you, in exchange for the money you just promised."

Hex looked steadily at Castiel with a little smile, and Castiel looked back.

Then Hex released Cas' chin with a laugh. "Should've known better. There's not a chance that he'd work with us, fellows. He thinks he's too good."

He leaned back on the bench, relaxed. "The problem, Castiel, is that you've cost me a lot of money. I know Vulcan was bundled out of LAX by your guards, and I know he hasn't been seen since. Do you have any idea how rare someone with his gifts is? The next best demonic armorer is in Japan. To get him exclusively on my payroll, I have to pay his costs of moving, buy him an adequately splendid house, and then pay him a huge salary. That's because you killed Vulcan, and I'm going to take it out of your hide."

He looked up and around at the guards. "Who do you think would pay most if we put Castiel on the auction block?"

"The Terrestrials," said Guerin. "He knows as much as anyone about Loyalist strengths and weaknesses."

"Hannah," Axel said, and they all laughed.

"I think not," Hex said. "But you remind me that there's a demon in Virginia who doesn't take rejection well. I think he'd pay a lot to see Castiel again."

"There's an auctioneer in Kazakhstan," said another guard. "He'd be able to find interested buyers we don't even know about."

"Really? You think someone overseas would be interested in buying a demonic bureaucrat?" Hex looked back at Castiel. "Granted, one with intelligence. And remarkable blue eyes. Maybe we'll go that route."

He stood and gestured to Guerin, the demon behind him. "Pull the knife out of the bench, but be sure to keep it in his arm." And as Guerin moved to Cas' side of the bench, "We'll take him out through the trees – "

Hex slapped at his arm, looking startled, as a pop sounded. Hex looked around at the man with a gun ducking back in among the trees.

"A human?" Hex roared. He vanished and reappeared near where the man had disappeared. Axel began running after him; the other two stared for a moment, not sure what to do, and in that moment Castiel wrenched the angel blade out of his arm.

With a yell of pain and rage, he sank the blade into the gut of the demon standing next to him. Guerin drew his gun as the other guard died. Cas spun on the bench and waved. Guerin flew eight feet away; his gun flew twelve. He scrambled to his feet as Castiel pointed at him, and ran for the trees.

Cas' knees buckled and he clutched his forearm. Blood was saturating the sleeve of his coat. The dead guard had fallen on top of his gun; watching Axel run, Castiel didn't think he had time to turn the dead guard over, especially with a hand that was shaky and sticky. He grabbed his own angel blade with his left hand, looked to see where Axel was headed, and vanished.

"You're an idiot!" Hex bellowed at a clump of trees. "A human idiot. Do you think you can hide from demonic perception among trees?"

He turned slowly, stopped with a grin on his face.

Dean wasn't going to wait for Hex to take action. He half-emerged to fire at Hex, but the gun was wrenched from his hand and he was driven, hovering six inches above the ground, over to another tree, and his back was pinned against it.


	8. Chapter 8

"I'm guessing that you're Castiel's pet hit man," Hex said, approaching him. "We need to talk about the deaths of Mr. Vincent and Malazir."

"Who?" Dean gasped.

Then his eyes went wide, and he cried out in pain.

"You don't necessarily have to die. I may have a place in my organization for someone with your abilities."

Dean tried not to yell again, but couldn't help it. His fists clutched spasmodically; it was the only movement he could make.

"But I insist that my employees tell me the truth. Castiel hired you to kill Mr. Vincent and Malazir." He pulled the angel blade that Dean was wearing on his right hip and pointed it at Dean's eye. "You got these weapons from somewhere. And don't tell me it was some demon in Texas. Tell me – "

"Hex!" Axel was running toward them, shouting. "I saw Guerin running away from something! I can't see Castiel!" He stopped a few feet from Hex. "I think he's – "

He stopped with an astonished look. Orange light flashed in his eyes and out of the slit in his gut where the point of an angel blade was protruding. Then he slid down the sword, revealing Castiel behind him, and hit the ground hard.

"I'm here," Castiel said.

Hex released Dean, turning to Castiel, but the other demon had vanished. And in that moment Dean, crumpled at the base of the tree, reached for the back of his waistband, pulled a gun, and shot.

Hex reacted the way all demons did to the devil's trap bullets: a moment of triumph, then a moment of confusion, then a moment of realization. In those moments Dean shot his hand, and Hex gave a startled cry as the angel blade dropped.

Dean dove for the blade as Hex looked around, grinned, opened his mouth.

"No," Dean said ferociously, and leaped to Hex, throwing his elbow around the demon's throat in a chokehold. They struggled; Dean had to drop the blade and use his right hand to jam Hex's neck further into the chokehold. He might have broken the body's neck, he wasn't sure, Hex was still fighting as they fell to the ground. Dean reached over, grabbed the blade, and shoved it into Hex's gut.

Like Malazir, Hex simply stared in astonishment for a moment. "I won't," he said hoarsely, his head tilted at a bizarre angle. "I won't."

Then his eyes and head and wound flashed so intensely that Dean had to pull back, turning his head, squeezing his eyes hut. Hex managed a grating yell before he went silent and limp.

"Yeah, you will, you son of a bitch," Dean whispered.

He saw the devil's trap gun on the other side of Hex, where he'd dropped it when he'd jumped for the angel blade that would be fatal. He got to his feet, it was harder than he'd thought, and sagged as he bent to pick up the gun.

Crunching sound behind him, twigs cracking as someone ran toward him yelling in desperate horror, "Hex!"

Dean spun, but Cas reappeared right beside Guerin and stabbed him to death.

Castiel let out a breath and faced Dean, who lowered the gun and gave a shuddering sigh of his own. "Anyone else?"

Cas shook his head. "Axel killed all of Revard's other guards. He'd gone over to Hex."

"Glad you didn't tell anyone I'd be here."

"I, too."

"I heard a gunshot and saw the guy running and yelling, but Hex got there too fast and then sat on that damn bench next to you with all his guys around him. Couldn't line up a good shot." Dean grinned, stretching, putting the gun back in his waistband. "Told you I should've been closer to the bench."

Castiel winced, clutching his right arm with his left hand. "Perhaps you were right."

"What the hell?"

"I was injured."

"No, really?" Dean went to him and pushed up the sliced coat and jacket sleeves, tried to unbutton the shirt sleeve but it was too sticky and clogged. He ripped open the shirt where Hex's blade had gone into it, and hissed as the open wound was fully revealed.

"I've lost quite a lot of blood, but thanks to rapid demonic healing, it won't be fatal."

"Even so." Dean was using his shirttail to gently blot blood. "We need to get to the car and get this bound up."

"We need to go to the car and drive someplace where we can be alone."

His hands still on Castiel's arm, Dean looked up and met his gaze. "Yes."

"Should we dispose of the bodies?"

Dean looked around. "No. It'd be too long, I'm already paranoid that something got caught on some hiker's cell phone. And the surgeon's family should get some closure, even if it's lousy closure."

"We must take the weapons with us, though." Castiel vanished and reappeared by the bench.

Dean sighed, pulled his phone, and – to his astonishment – had coverage.

"Dean?" Sam's voice was unnerved.

"Yeah. Sorry I – "

"Where the hell have you been?"

"Angeles National Forest. Cas and Revard set a trap for Hex, and it worked – sort of. Hex is dead, I killed him. Revard's dead too, and a bunch of other demons. Cas is injured." Dean was walking among the trees, finding the three guards Axel had killed and collecting their weapons, as well as Axel's and Guerin's. "I'm fine, well, I've got some aches and pains but I'm not bleeding."

Sam's voice was dangerously quiet. "And you didn't tell me about this because – "

"Because I knew it was gonna get ugly and you're a little more than two weeks out from being possessed by a demon and I didn't want to put you through it, OK?"

"Dean." Sam was still quiet. "If you ever, I mean ever, do anything like that without me again, I will deliberately get drunk and throw up all over the Impala's interior."

A moment of shocked silence. "OK, Sam, I mean, I get your anger, but some things – "

"You will never do something life-threatening without me again. Got it?"

"Got it. OK." Dean dropped a few of the collected weapons in one spot.

"OK." Then, relenting, "So – you killed Hex, huh?"

"I did." Castiel reappeared. He'd taken off his coat and was carrying weapons in it. He put it on the ground and Dean went to him, carrying an angel blade in one hand, dangling a gun from one finger, and with two guns besides his own stuck in his waistband. With a smile, Castiel began pulling the guns, touching Dean as he did it . "I'll tell – oh – uh, no, that one's mine – I'll tell you about. OK – I'll tell you about it later. Right now I'm, I'm, we're gonna have a drink or two. So I might not be back for, you know, a few hours, but I'm all right."

There was a three-second silence. "Be careful, Dean."

"Fighting's all over. I'm fine."

"Be careful, Dean."

Dean focused on what Sam was saying. "I understand. But it's all right. We're all right."

"Call me when you get started back."

"Roger that." Dean disconnected as Castiel dropped an angel blade on the pile of weaponry with a resonant musical _shrung_. He began pulling the corners of the coat around the weapons as a makeshift knapsack.

Dean looked at Castiel's bloody arm and said, "You should let me carry that. It's going to be – "

Castiel pulled up the bulging coat with his left hand, easily.

Dean had to smile. "Smartass demon. I wish the first-aid kit in the car was closer, though."

"I wish the car were closer for other reasons." Castiel gazed at him. "Perhaps here."

"Here among the demon corpses? Uh, no."

Cas sighed a little. "You're right."

"Know a good place?"

Castiel nodded. "I will direct you."

.

When they got back to the Impala, parked at the scenic overlook, it was the only time they encountered humans: A couple with Nebraska plates was looking out over the forest's ridges and ravines with cameras as they arrived, but they got the weapons knapsack into the trunk and the first-aid kit out of it before the Midwesterners looked around. Fortunately, they were a couple of spaces over from Dean, on the driver's side, so they never saw Cas' arm as he got in on the passenger side and Dean gave them a cheerful wave.

Dean rested the first-aid kit on the bench seat between them. "I wish those folks would go away, plenty of other scenic places on this – "

Castiel took the back of Dean's neck with his left hand and kissed him.

Dean lost all sense of anything else, grabbing Cas, sliding his hands under the ruined shirt, grunting as their tongues caressed each other.

Cas' head pulled back and Dean heard an engine roar at the same moment. He looked out the window. The Midwesterners had leaped back into their car, the husband starting to pull out of the parking space even before the wife had her door fully shut.

"You wanted them to leave?" Castiel asked.

Dean laughed shakily. "You are so keyed into humans it's scary. No. It's not scary." He seized the back of Castiel's neck in turn. "It's great."

It was a few minutes before Dean got Cas' wound, still gaping horribly although not bleeding, cleaned and bound with gauze. He was moving in an erotic haze now, driving where Cas told him to go, swimming through the aisles of a store on the way for beer and other necessities, pulling into the canopied circle drive of a quiet hotel a few blocks off Rodeo Drive that had valet parking, but also self-parking in a garage for maximum privacy.

Dean tucked his bloody shirttail into his jeans and checked in. Later on he thought that he probably cut a strange figure, grimy and sweaty, among the businessmen on their smartphones and white-haired ladies having tea in the lobby, but the well trained clerk didn't even raise an eyebrow.

Dean met Cas at a stairwell and ran up to the second floor. Castiel took his sweet time, smiling at Dean as he mounted the stairs like a human, and by the time Dean opened the room door his hand was shaking.

Dean tore down the bedcovers and ripped off his shirt as Cas folded his bloody suit jacket, put it over a chair, and loosened his tie. "We've gotta get you a new suit. And shirt, and coat."

"I have several more of each at home."

"Of course you do." They started taking off their shoes at the same time, but Dean threw them anywhere and pulled off his socks while Cas was still placing his carefully under the chair.

Dean got rid of the rest of his clothes and threw himself happily on the mattress. "Great bed. Come on over and try it."

Castiel, shirtless, looked Dean over as he unfastened his pants. "I rather like the view from where I am."

A thought struck Dean. "Maybe I should take a shower."

"Maybe you should stay right where you are." There was a slight, thrilling undertone of command in Cas' voice.

Dean grinned at him. "I'm gonna do you a favor." He grabbed the just-purchased lubricant from the nightstand, ripping at the packaging. "I'm gonna lube myself up and let you go at it first. This is something I do only for people who save my life twice in a demon battle royale."

He proceeded to do that. Castiel stood nude at the foot of the bed and watched, silent, his eyes intense.

"Come on over here. I've been wanting to get my hands on you for, what's it been, a month?"

Castiel moved over and lay next to Dean. They kissed, and Dean rubbed his neck delightedly over Cas' unexpectedly rough five o'clock shadow.

Then he stopped, tipping Cas' head to look at the back of his neck. "What the hell is that?"

"A brand. Hex put it on me back there. It seals me in this body so that I can't escape through the mouth."

Dean swore, caressing the injured skin lightly. "Kind of ironic, though. Hex and I both like you in this body."

"Not for quite the same purposes. He was planning to sell me at auction to raise funds for a new armorer."

"Good for him I didn't know that. I'd have done an amazing number on him with the angel blade." He kissed the brand gently. "Not that you would have been a prisoner for long, though. He really thought he was smarter than you, didn't he?"

"He certainly thought he was stronger."

"And wrong again. Does that hurt?"

"It's healing quickly. It will hurt to break the brand, though. It requires another brand to cut through the current markings, like breaking a devil's trap."

"Yeah, but why put yourself through that? Once you're human, you'll be staying in that meatsui – body anyway."

Castiel gave a little moan. Dean ran his hands all over Cas, stroking between his legs, and took the tension in Cas' muscles for excitement until Cas clutched his arm so hard it hurt.

"Sorry if I'm rough – little excited – " He caressed Cas gently and gave him a lingering kiss.

Cas clutched Dean's arm again and groaned with pain.

"Oh," Dean said with sudden realization. "It's the caring thing again, isn't it? It's hurting you."

Cas nodded, biting his lips.

For a moment Dean looked stumped, then he smiled. "Give me five minutes, I'll have you feeling so good you won't even notice any pain."

Cas smiled back, rubbing one leg luxuriantly along Dean's. "I believe that."

"Just relax." He ran his tongue down Cas' body, already smoothed where Dean's lube-slick fingers had caressed him. "You know what? Pretend we don't care about each other. Pretend we're strangers and we're just banging each other because we're so hot." He used his teeth, gently, on Cas' neck. "Because you are. First time I saw you, all those goons with guns around, all I could think – ah – " Cas was caressing and clutching him – "all I could think was, that Mafia guy is – "

He started talking dirty, expletives and anatomical specifics, trying to pretend that Castiel wasn't going rigid under him, and not in a good way.

"I'm sorry, Dean," he gasped.

Dean looked at his face. His eyes were doing that terrible thing where they flickered from human to demon and back.

"I can't help but care – I know you want me to be happy." He gasped. "It hurts, I don't think I can do this, the pain is – "

His nails were sinking into Dean as his eyes flickered.

"Do what'll make you feel good," Dean said.

"I don't want – "

"I can handle it. Do what you need to do to stop hurting, Cas."

Castiel's eyes went black and he snarled, "Don't pander to me."

With demonic strength he clawed Dean, pushed him into a position he wanted, invaded. Dean was really glad he'd lubricated himself, because there wasn't a chance that demon Cas would've done it. As it was, he found himself saying sharply, "Wait, dammit – take a moment – OK, just – Just – "

Cas came, pounding, laughing. Dean yelled in pain and, yes, excitement. Cas tore out of Dean, and the next thing Dean knew Cas was grinning under those inhuman eyes, his right hand clutching Dean's upper arm.

"It's OK," Dean gasped, because he thought in a moment Castiel would be regretting his assault, "it's OK, we'll – "

Then he yelled. Demonic strength or no, he threw Cas off of him and leaped out of bed, clutching his upper arm.

He took his hand away, looked, swore. A red, blistering second-degree burn in the shape of Cas' hand showed clearly on his bicep.

He gasped and looked over at Cas, but Cas wasn't in bed. Before Dean could draw a breath he heard water running in the bathroom, and as he turned Cas reappeared beside him with a cold, dripping wet washcloth, which he pressed gently on the burn. Dean looked at Cas' eyes; they were human.

Dean bit back his first couple of remarks, went over to the bed and sat down on it, wincing with that pain. Castiel followed him, ministering to the burn.

As Dean's breathing returned to normal, he looked at Cas and asked with objective curiosity, "Were you going to incinerate me?"

"No. I was branding you."

"Oh." For some reason, he found that kind of funny. "Well. Mission accomplished, I guess."

"This will heal," Cas said, and vanished. A moment later he was back with fresh cold water on the cloth, pressing it to Dean's arm.

With an exhausted sigh, Dean lay back on the bed. Castiel vanished and reappeared next to him, hovering over Dean, cooling the burn, the corners of his eyes tense.

"I should apologize."

"But you have a hard time apologizing for doing what comes naturally."

"Even now." Cas' voice ground to a halt, but he forced himself to keep talking. "Even now there is a part of me that is enjoying the memory of hurting you. It's why I can care for you without being in pain myself."

"Man." Dean shook his head. "This whole thing is going to be so much easier when you're human."

Castiel lifted and replaced the cloth, dabbing at the wound. He didn't say anything.

Dean's right arm bent across his chest and he covered Cas' hand. "Answer me something?"

Cas took a breath. "I owe you that, at least."

"I've been wondering about this, and for a while I didn't want to know, but now I do. How did you end up in Hell?"

Cas tipped his face away, closing his eyes, shook his head. For a moment Dean thought he wouldn't answer.

Then he said, "Weakness."

He gave a final press to the washcloth on Dean's arm, pulled his hand out from under Dean's hand, and lay on his back, telling his story to the ceiling.

"In 1999 I was deeply unhappy."

He laughed, a stoned-sounding bitter laugh that startled Dean.

"I was a twenty-eight-year-old failure. Or so I saw myself. I had no goals in life. I had never been able to sustain a relationship. I dropped out of college to learn computer programming, dropped out of that to hold a series of menial jobs. I went back and forth between blaming others for my failures and simply telling myself that I was a stupid person without gifts. My sister," he swallowed, "who loved me deeply, tried to convince me that my problem was self-hatred, that there were root causes for it, and that I should see a therapist. I dismissed the idea as self-indulgent, as whiny. In truth, I couldn't bear the thought of delving into the unhappy parts of my past, to understand why I chose to despise myself. It was easier to say, 'I'm strong enough to admit that I'm a failure.'"

He smiled, a brief dark smile.

"In 1996 I slipped on some water in the kitchen where I was working and wrenched my knee badly. I received a 30-day prescription for pain pills. How I loved that experience the first few times. I quickly started using them more often than I was supposed to. It's not like the pills made me happy or successful. I still felt myself to be an unhappy failure, but when I was high I didn't care.

"From there on my story is routine. I went through several doctors, started buying from dealers. I spent my income, got kicked out of my apartment. I lived with my parents until I finally stole from them once too often and they changed the locks. By this time I'd moved on to heroin. I went to my sister. She wouldn't give me cash, but she offered to dig into her retirement savings to pay for rehab." He closed his eyes. "I cursed her and left.

"I have since realized that mine was a universal story. I took drugs to deal with my problems, then the drugs became the problem."

"And the original problem was still there."

"Exactly. One night in 1999 I tried to rob my dealer. He gave me one hard slap, told me I'd need to find another supplier, and left me literally lying in the gutter."

He closed his eyes again. Dean rolled over to watch him better, the pain of his arm almost forgotten.

"When I sat up, a man was standing under a streetlamp where the alley met the main road."

"Crossroads demon," Dean whispered.

"I have learned that his name was Crowley, and he has become the King of the Crossroads Demons since then – though not because he brought in my pathetic soul. He said I looked like I could use a drink. He seemed – not really sympathetic, but understanding, and he looked rich. I thought I could talk him out of money."

"And he talked you out of your soul."

"He did a few magic tricks, convinced me that he was who he said he was. We talked about souls. I figured it was like an appendix – useless in life, and once you were dead it couldn't hurt you. He said – "

Cas smiled ruefully, shook his head.

"He told me that my soul wasn't valued on Earth, but that in Hell all human souls are valued exactly the same, no matter how successful their owners were on Earth. And of course, he was telling the exact truth. All human souls are hated and tortured equally in Hell.

"When he asked what I wanted more than anything, it crossed my mind to say – "

He hesitated, and Dean filled in, "All the drugs."

"Yes. But I surprised myself – surprised Crowley too, I think. I told him I wanted to be free of drugs. No withdrawal, no cravings, no desire for them, ever again. The easy way out. He said I could live like that for ten years before my soul was collected. I said it seemed like a short lifespan, and he asked how long I thought I had, the way I was going. It was actually a good point. So I made the deal.

"The relief was instant, immediate. I felt sure I'd made the right choice. I found another job – just another busboy job, but I was able to stay at work, keep the job. I thought – I felt so clever at having made this escape, I began to think that maybe I wasn't so stupid after all. I made peace with my family. It was a long time before they trusted me, but after a few years they began realizing that I was safe on my new course. It made them happy."

He swallowed spasmodically.

"As I – made new friends, discovered new interests, worked my way up in the restaurant industry, I grew increasingly haunted by the thought that – "

He looked directly at Dean. "I could have done it. I could have done it all without selling my soul.

"The night of the ten-year anniversary, I was driving across Wyoming at eighty miles an hour. Don't ask me why I thought I could escape death in a car. Humans in fear for their lives don't make rational decisions. At the stroke of midnight I heard dogs snarling – behind me and beside me, in the car. I couldn't see anything, but I felt my ear being bitten and severed.

"I went off the road and crashed. Somehow I survived that and tried to run. All these years of pain later, I still remember clearly the feeling of hellhounds tearing me apart."

"God," Dean whispered.

"I won't talk about the fifty years of torture that followed – it's only five months in Earth time, but believe me, it was every hour of fifty years down there. And even then, as I say, they probably released me too soon. I found myself very reluctant to possess an innocent person. It occurred to me to possess a drug dealer. I didn't want to, but I thought that would be justice on both sides."

Dean ran the backs of his fingers along Castiel's stubble-roughened cheek. "This was a drug dealer?" he asked in amused disbelief.

"No, actually, this was a cop. I happened on the scene just as a drug dealer shot him, having discovered that he was undercover. The shooter fled, and I occupied the body as the officer left it. It took me a couple of days to get back to full strength, and then I left Trenton for Olympia, then Portland, then Los Angeles. The officer's co-workers and loved ones believe that his body was dumped in the Delaware River or in a concrete pillar."

"So – you were a drug addict who occupied an undercover narc, and then you were a Terrestrial undercover as a Loyalist."

"The ironies have not escaped me."

Dean caressed him. "Thank you, Cas. That must've been hard to remember. Thanks for telling me about it."

"I owe you an explanation. And I owe you something else."

Cas rolled over and began using his tongue on Dean's neck, then shoulders and chest, working his way down. Regardless of the pain Cas had inflicted on him, Dean lay still, somehow utterly relaxed, until Cas' mouth enveloped and teased his cock. Then he felt compelled to say, "No biting."

Cas pressed his tongue against Dean as he pulled away, said gently, "No biting," and went back to work.

Dean went out of his mind, rippling and grunting, incapable of thought. At one moment he saw Castiel's hand gripping the covers until his knuckles were white and realized that it must be hurting him horribly to express love, to be thanked and praised for it, but then the whole thing was gone in a nova of sensation, no thought, all body all ecstasy.

He melted, a warm tide of relaxation and exhaustion engulfing him. He managed to say, "Love you – sorry if that hurts – but I do," before he fell asleep.

Why he woke up he didn't know. He'd have thought he'd be out for hours, after forest-walking, battle, injury, and an amazing orgasm. But something told him to come back, and when he did, Castiel was sliding his bloody shirt sleeve into his ripped jacket sleeve.

"Demon crisis?" he asked sleepily.

"I have to return."

Dean didn't like the tone of his voice, and sat up. "Not until we talk about what happens next. Hex is dead, that was my goal. You wanted to set the Loyalist biggies against each other, and it worked so well it damn near came around to bite you in the ass. Let's talk about an exit strategy."

Castiel nodded. "You and Sam should plan to leave immediately. You have killed four demons, and Sam is a walking target for any demon who resents Andrealphus' exorcism. If I can do anything to assist you in your move, tell me."

"Assist?" Dean shook his head and got out of bed. Fortunately he wasn't one of those who felt at a disadvantage when he was naked. "Don't do this, Cas. You're coming with us. You know that's the best thing."

Cas looked away from him, then looked directly into his eyes. "Have your brother look at your arm and see if he says it's the best thing."

"Sam has no problem with you being with us while you become human."

"I cannot do that."

"You can't _not_ do it, Cas! Sam was right! This pain is going to keep hitting you and you're going to have to do something. If you're just surrounded by demons – "

"It will be easier for me to slip into a completely demonic state. Yes. Why do you think I told you the story of my pathetic human life? You have to understand. I am weak. I am not strong enough – "

"Bull, Cas! You go completely demonic, it's going to be your life story. You're going to realize that you could have had a good human life, with love and friendship and doing – doing something that doesn't involve killing people, and you threw it away because you wanted to take the easy way out. Don't do it, Cas. Don't. You're strong enough. I know you are."

"And if I'm not, I could hurt you even worse. I could even kill you."

"You wouldn't."

"You can't know that."

"But I do. Look – Just come with us, Cas. Please. Let us help you to become human. I won't let you kill me. Hell, Sam won't let you kill me."

Castiel sighed, looked up at Dean. "I cannot make the commitment."

Then he was at the door, opened it, and vanished.

Dean ran to the door, but Castiel was nowhere in sight in either direction down the hall.

He swore. The elevator dinged, and Dean ducked back into the room, slamming the door.

He could feel exhaustion fraying his nerves, but there was no way he was going to get back to sleep. He dressed, checked out – and again, the clerk didn't even blink when Dean checked out after less than two hours and clearly in a foul mood – and went to the parking garage.

The thing about parking garages is that, while they offer protection from prying eyes and inclement weather, they are accessible by birds.

Dean stood staring at the Impala's splattered door and windshield, and swore as bitterly as he'd ever sworn at a demon. It was lucky for the offender that it had flown away; Dean had put the devil's-trap gun back in his ankle holster.

He stopped at the first convenience store he saw, cleaned off the car, decided to put in some gas as well. Because he paid cash for everything, he headed into the store.

He was drawn by the odor of fresh popcorn, and got a small bag of it. The popper was right next to a magazine stand, and he looked them over.

It was unusual these days for a convenience store to carry soft-core porn, but this store did – Busty Asian Beauties and a couple of others. They weren't progressive enough to carry magazines featuring male models, but Dean wasn't in the mood anyway. And what would he get – Skinny Blue-Eyed Demons With Intimacy Issues?

He smiled a little at the thought, took a step over and picked up a car magazine, flipped through it, unseeing.

Sam was right. Dean had never had an easy relationship in his life. Of course all relationships required work, but his love life was a series of train wrecks interspersed with amicable partings. He didn't know if it was because of the kind of guy he attracted or the kind of guy he was attracted to. But he was beginning to have the feeling that he was going to end up alone.

An electronic chime sounded, meaning that the door had opened, and a guy said loudly to the clerk, "Who's the asshole with the gas-guzzler?"

Dean's breath sped up, and something clicked into place in his brain. Later, he realized that it was satisfaction.

"OK, sir, if you have a problem, talk to me," the clerk said, putting some authority into his voice. "What's the issue?"

"I don't wanna talk to you. I wanna talk to the jerk who parked his car so he blocked both pumps. He must be really damn important."

Dean turned, still holding the magazine, smiling. "Hey, I'm sorry. Didn't realize that the car blocked both pumps on the other side, too."

"You wanna try driving a normal car around that beached whale in that driveway? Maybe you're rich, but I can't afford a new fender. And I've got to get to work, so move it, ass."

"Sir," the clerk said, "I'm gonna suggest that you have a seat in our coffee alcove for just a moment, I'll get you a cup on the house. Don't worry, we'll get you to work. Sir," addressing Dean, "were you wrapping up here?"

That was the moment where the whole thing could have been resolved peacefully.

And it blew past as Dean smiled at the angry customer and said, "Well, I was. But now I think I'm gonna take my time."

The clerk started out from behind the counter, talking to Dean in a tone that implied, Hey, we're the rational ones here. "Why don't you just move the car up a few – "

The angry man moved over to Dean faster and shoved him toward the door. "Move it, ass! Move it!"

Dean turned, rolling the magazine, and smiled. The clerk was saying something about the cops and the angry man was swearing from a mouth that smelled like a distillery and Dean's whole focus went to the angry man's solar plexus.

He rammed the end of the magazine into his opponent's gut. The guy crashed back into the sky-blue table and chairs of the coffee alcove, not falling but half-sprawling across the table, gasping. The clerk banged a button under the counter and went to the front door to lock it.

Dean yelled, "You want more?" – rhetorically, because he figured the guy was finished, but the guy pulled himself off the table and came at Dean. Dean knocked him down, dropped to the floor and began whaling away on the guy with his left fist and the rolled magazine in his right hand, bloodying his nose, bruising his eye, while the clerk tried to yell at him to stop it, the cops were on their way.

That finally got through to Dean. He stood, went to the door, banged the handle, and left. He saw no police cars, and no one pursued him.

Moron human thinks he's tough, he thought in a rage. Let him try to take on a demon. Wouldn't last five seconds. Needed a lesson.

.

Castiel did the disappearing-jump thing as far as the stairwell door on the first floor, but didn't want to do it more publicly than that, so he went to the front door and asked the doorman to call a cab. He sat on a bench just outside the door to wait, and a few minutes later was aware of Dean's presence behind him, checking out. Dean took the side door that led to the parking garage and didn't see Castiel.

Castiel leaned his elbows on his knees and studied the concrete, flicked with glittering bits of mica. When the cab came he rode it to the parking lot of a shopping center in La Canada Flintridge, where he'd parked his Acura before joining Dean in the Impala at noon.

He pulled up to the security gate at home at the same time as a black Mercedes coming in the opposite direction. The window rolled down and Parcell outright gaped at him.

Castiel let them both in, and Parcell parked behind him in the drive. As Parcell emerged, Cas said, "You have a new car, I see."

"The previous one is being held as evidence in the bombing by police, who have no idea who I am and no record of its registration. Yes, Castiel, we should definitely discuss that, instead of the obvious wound shredding your jacket or the fact that no one has heard from Revard or you for hours or the fact that human police are finding bodies all over the Angeles National Forest. Hannah is frantic. She called me here to give me your hairbrush or something and scry for you."

"Her concern is not misplaced. I am the only survivor."

Parcell's head snapped up, his eyes wide. "Revard?"

"Gone. We set a trap for Hex. Revard told only four of his guards. Unfortunately, one of them was Axel."

"I thought he was – oh no, he defected to Revard the night of the bombing, didn't he?"

"And then promptly defected to Hex. He killed Revard's other three guards in the forest, silently, using an angel blade. He then ran down to Revard to 'report' the deaths of the other guards and shot Revard before we had grasped the situation. I killed the others."

"Including Hex?"

"Yes."

"I'm impressed, Castiel. No insult intended, but you've never struck me as – as a war movie hero."

"I was desperate."

"Yes." Parcell started moving toward the house. "Let's get you inside, maybe a poultice to help that arm."

"It's mostly healed. That's why I took so long coming back. I didn't want to present myself in a weakened state, or tell anyone that I was weakened."

It was a logical demonic explanation, and Parcell had no problem with it. He smiled a little. "I'm going to tell Hannah that I not only scried for you, I conjured you. See if I can make her believe it. She will be – quite pleased to see you."

Ahead of them, Hannah flung the door open and stared at Castiel. Her expression wasn't purely pleased, however – there was a sharp concern, verging on suspicion, mixed with her astonishment. "Were you at the neutral zone? Where they're finding the bodies?"

"Yes." Castiel explained to her as they moved into the front hallway with the front door guard, and Lina, one of the housekeepers, came out of a front room to listen. He kept it brief, wrapping up with, "The police will be identifying Revard soon as a known associate of organized crime, which means we can be expecting another visit from Detective Edwards. I need to be clean and in undamaged clothing before they arrive."

"You need to look at something in the monitor room first."

Castiel looked at her, startled. She never spoke to him as if she were giving an order. "Was the fight captured on someone's video camera?"

"Not that fight," she said, and turned her back on him, starting up the stairs.

Parcell, looking curious, followed her. Castiel disappeared and reappeared at the top of the steps.

The monitor room – formerly a bedroom and sitting room with the wall between them knocked down – was large and dim, with five monitors in a row showing the grainy black-and-white feed from security cameras in the five L.A.-area SavorStops. These were the cameras aimed at the refreshment areas meant to lure Terrestrials, and the video – and audio – feed came to this room only. One technician was watching all five cameras. He looked up and around as Hannah, Castiel, and Parcell entered. His gaze stopped for a moment on Castiel, then moved away.

"Run it, pause it, and then take a break," Hannah told him.

The technician didn't need to be told details. He stopped the live feed on one monitor and backed up the video about forty minutes.

"This happened at the SavorStop in Beverly Hills," Hannah said. Her tone was cold. "The clerk reported it to police and was about to call the company when we called him. The clerk is human, so he can't tell the difference between humans and demons. But from his description it appears to be simply a confrontation between two humans, one of them drunk, one of them violent. Play it."

The technician, who'd cued up the video and waited for Hannah's explanation, played it. A man yelled at a slightly taller man and pushed him. The other man shoved the fight provoker into the coffee alcove, and their images, which had previously just been in a corner of the screen, moved fully into the range of the alcove cameras. The first man pulled himself off of a table and started for the taller man. The taller man knocked him to the floor and beat him with his fist and a rolled magazine. The beaten man was out of sight of the camera, and he didn't stand up when his attacker did. The taller man glanced around as he began to walk away, letting the magazine unroll in his hand, and the technician paused the video as the taller man's face was revealed fully.

The technician stood, said, "I'll be in the kitchen," and – casting a quick glance at Castiel's expression – left.

"Well?" Hannah said to Castiel.

Castiel raised his gaze from the screen. "Well? As you said, a fight between two humans."

Hannah swallowed. "Don't, Castiel. Please. Don't be deceptive."

Castiel looked at the monitor for a moment more, his face tense. Then he said, "Hannah, I'm very tired. Just tell me what you want to say."

"That's the burglar. The one you arranged to trap for Mr. Sanchez, before his possession. The one you supposedly destroyed so completely that he was only a scorch mark in the interrogation room. He's alive and obviously free."


	9. Chapter 9

Parcell sank into the technician's chair, studying the unmoving image.

Castiel shrugged. "Obviously, I chose not to destroy him – or to hand him over to Sanchez, which would have been the same thing. I had my own reasons for doing so, and I am not answerable to you, Hannah."

"And you could have said so at the time. Instead you chose to deceive us – to deceive me – by implying that he was dead. Too much has happened lately, Castiel. We cannot lie to each other."

"Demons can't lie?" He looked amused, as Parcell looked up at him. "Isn't that what we do, Hannah? I have to wash up. If the police come before I'm ready, tell them I'm on a business call in my office and will be with them very soon."

He strode out of the office. Hannah looked after him, took a step.

Parcell's hand closed around her wrist. She looked at him in irritation, saw the expression on his face, and sank into the chair next to him.

"I recognize this human too." Parcell's voice was low. "He was doing lawn care at Malazir's home one afternoon. She was planning to use him as one of her – playthings."

"And he escaped her too."

"I think he did more than escape her. This was the day before I found her body."

Her eyes went wide and she sat back in her chair.

"I never considered saying anything about it because he was just a human, and it never occurred to me that he might be able to stir a hair on Malazir's head. But recently – "

"But recently a human killed Lester. And apparently a human killed Malazir."

"This dark-horse hit man that apparently only Castiel knows. Somehow equipped with demonic weapons."

"The tempered jawbone that supposedly came from a demon in Texas. But there was one missing from Mr. Vincent's personal armory."

"Angel-blade bullets, too. Castiel told the Council about that just before the bomb went off. An angel-blade bullet killed Malazir."

"And M – " Hannah stammered. "Mr. Vincent."

She ran her hands through her hair. Parcell watched her carefully.

"But why?" she whispered. "It makes no sense."

Parcell shrugged. "I can think of three separate explanations that make sense."

"Three?"

"One: Castiel wants supreme power among the Loyalists. He may not have realized that the deaths of Mr. Vincent and Malazir would set Hex off on a murder rampage, or he may have known it full well. He may have been working with Hex from the outset."

"He has nothing but contempt for Hex."

"Which might make him consider Hex a useful tool."

Hannah shook her head, and Parcell continued, "Two: Castiel has betrayed the Loyalists, gone over to the Terrestrial cause. He may want supreme power among the Loyalists in order to destroy us completely, or he may simply have wanted to set Loyalists against each other to benefit the Terrestrial cause."

Hannah closed her eyes and took a breath as though absorbing a body blow, then opened her eyes again. "Three?"

"Three: The human wants to make war on demons, and Castiel is helping because he's in love." Parcell pointed at the screen. "The human is even better-looking in person."

"Even if Castiel discarded his demonic nature so completely that he would – fall in love, he isn't so superficial that he'd choose someone because he's good-looking."

"Well. They may have interests in common."

Hannah closed her eyes again. Parcell, seeing her obvious pain, gave a quick silent chuckle, but his face was straight by the time she opened her eyes.

"We must take action," she said.

"Castiel must be exorcised."

"No. No. He's been too good for the Loyalist cause. In the past. And you could be wrong. Or you may be right. About the human. He has bewitched Castiel, drawn him into doing things that Castiel would never do otherwise. He – He has to make a choice. He has to make a choice."

She focused on Parcell. "I will take care of this matter. It will be resolved, one way or the other. Please don't tell anyone about this until that time."

The word "please" is almost unknown among demons, and it was the second time in five minutes that Hannah had used it. Parcell kept himself from smiling; his voice was grave. "This is vitally important information to the Loyalists, Hannah. If I stay silent, I'm committing treason myself."

Hannah cut to the chase. "What do you want?"

"At the moment, nothing. But at some future date I'm going to need a serious favor. And you'll arrange it for me. Or I'll tell everyone that you begged me to withhold information about a traitor because you loved him."

"Yes. Of course. I would owe you a favor even without the threat."

Parcell nodded, stood. "I'll be on my way. Call me if I can assist. And Hannah – remember that I survived a bomb. My security reaches beyond mere steel and weaponry. Just in case you become concerned about my silence."

She nodded, and Parcell left.

She stared at the floor for several minutes. Her hands curled slowly into fists and her back bent as though she were being racked by pain.

Then her eyes went black, her back straightened, and she pulled her phone from her jacket pocket.

"Devin? Mat, the video technician, is in the kitchen. Tell him he can have the rest of the day off. Then get Inzur and bring him with you to the monitor room. Tell no one else about these instructions. Is that clear?"

After a moment, satisfied, she disconnected.

She turned on the chair, her eyes still completely black, and looked at the human on the screen.

Castiel went into his office, pulled his phone from his jacket pocket.

Then he stopped, looking around the room as if thinking about something, actually studying the walls for surveillance devices.

Then he used the phone to call downstairs and ask Frederic to brew a pot of green tea, which he'd be down to enjoy shortly.

He showered, changed clothes. He seemed quite normal at dinner; Hannah was silent. He left his trench coat upstairs, and one of the housekeepers teased him about it. He waited for the police to arrive, but they didn't, not then.

.

Dean was quiet when he got back to the apartment, telling Sam he just needed to do some thinking. He didn't tell Sam about the incident at the SavorStop, but watched the local news as he ordered a delivery pizza. He needn't have worried; eight bodies near Mount Wilson, two of them suspected associates of organized crime and one a prominent surgeon who had disappeared under violent circumstances two weeks ago, completely excluded any coverage of a quick brawl in a convenience store.

After dinner, Dean stretched out on the inflatable mattress he'd brought into the apartment, pulled a sheet over himself, and lay quietly, not sleeping, but not speaking. Sam turned out the lights, took one of the non-prescription sleeping pills that were just beginning to help him get a few hours of uninterrupted sleep, and looked at Dean's laptop until the pill kicked in. On his way to the sofa bed, he squeezed Dean's shoulder gently, and took Dean's little sound of pain as a drowsy grunt.

.

The next morning, Castiel dressed carefully, examining every piece of clothing as he put it on. Before he went down to breakfast, he went into his office, closed the door, and examined the room for hidden cameras.

Satisfied, he went to the wall safe, opened it, and removed a wallet much like the one that was already in his suit jacket. He checked over the new wallet – driver's license, credit cards, a passcard from a national bank, cash. He put it into a pocket on the other side of his suit jacket, closed the safe, and went down to breakfast.

He left his new, undamaged trench coat hanging on a coat rack in his room.

The police arrived at the Bel Air mansion early that afternoon, and told Castiel that his presence was requested at the station again. Castiel asked Hannah to bring his trench coat, and left with the detectives.

The hours that followed were frustrating on both sides. The detectives knew damn well that Castiel was involved in the mob war that had just killed eight people – including a surgeon who, they assumed, was there as a hostage or shield – in a national forest. They'd caught a glimpse on a traffic camera of one of the victims, a guy named Revard Williams, apparently sleeping in the back seat of Castiel's car on the day of a bombing that killed three people whose bodies were burned beyond recognition. It seemed logical that Revard may have been injured in the bombing and was fleeing the scene, especially since his car was there at the bomb site, but they couldn't exactly question Williams, who was dead, or the chauffeur, who was dead, or Sarah Hughes, whose car was at the scene and who was presumably one of the bodies inside. (Parcell wasn't picked up by traffic cameras.)

Mrs. Vincent, the widow and mother of Castiel's boss and co-worker, was still somewhere in the South Pacific. Mr. Vincent's secretary, a nice and cooperative woman, looked at a picture of Malazir's dead face, shuddered, and then said the picture was of a woman named Malazir who had been in meetings with her boss once a month. They'd known Malazir was associated with Sucro because her Hidden Hills home was owned by a shell company that traced back to Sucro. The contents of Malazir's home were bizarre, and appeared to have nothing to do with either Sucro's business or organized crime. But again, it wasn't like they could question the woman about it.

Over the course of the afternoon, they brought in every member of Castiel's staff, walking them past the window of the office in which he was being interrogated. (And now he knew why he wasn't in a regular interrogation room.) He had the feeling that this was supposed to unnerve him, but he wasn't unnerved. He did wonder why didn't see Lina, a red-headed housekeeper; he had seen her at the house that morning. But it was just as well; Lina had a hair-trigger temper.

He and the staff had worked out his alibi for the previous day, and it was easy to stick to. They would stick to it, too; Hannah's suspicion of him wouldn't show itself at the police station. Deflecting nosy humans was more important to any demon than his own battles.

No, he knew exactly how Hannah's suspicions would be expressed, and it wouldn't be by giving him over to human law enforcement. As he'd checked his clothing that morning before putting it on, he'd been sure that the police would take him out of the house that day. He'd kept some distance from all staff members, so that the only chance anyone would have to plant anything on him would be when he'd asked Hannah to bring his coat.

And sure enough, there was a homing device in an inside pocket of the coat.

He found it, two hours after he'd left the house, standing in a men's room stall. He'd dropped it in a trash can. It was meant for following at a distance, and whoever was tracking it wouldn't be able to tell that the phone had switched rooms; it would look like Castiel was still in the police station. The demon keeping track of the device would have to be fairly nearby, and now he knew why Lina hadn't been at the house to be rounded up by police and questioned.

His staff members had all been allowed to leave by the time the police released him. He found his way to a back exit, blinded the security cameras there, disappeared, and reappeared a half-block away. He did that once more before he was in an area too populous for him to disappear.

He walked to a discount store, bought a phone, and had it activated, keeping a close eye on the people around him. There was an alley nearby, deserted and darkening as the sun was going down, and now he could make the phone call he'd wanted to make since he'd seen the video last night.

.

"You're not hearing me," Lina snapped at the desk sergeant. "Of course I can demand to see him, I'm his lawyer." She showed him her phone. "I can pull up the Sixth Amendment right here, if you can read it."

"What's all this?" Detective Edwards asked as he reached the desk from the elevator.

She spun. "My name is Lina Johnston. I'm Castiel De Santis' lawyer, and I demand to see him. You can't hold him here indefinitely."

"Well – there are two problems with that, Ms. Johnston." Edwards seemed a little distracted. "Haven't I seen you at Mr. DeSantis' house before?"

Since the housekeepers didn't wear uniforms of any kind, the question didn't bother Lina. "Doubtless you have. As I said, I'm his lawyer. I've always told him he's far too self-confident, talking to you people by himself. This afternoon you took him away and he hasn't been heard from since. You'll let me speak to him or face legal consequences."

"Well, as I said, Ms. Johnston, there are two problems with that. First, Mr. De Santis told us that he didn't need a lawyer, because he is a lawyer. And second, he left a half-hour ago."

Lina glared at him for a moment, shifted her gaze.

The personification of courtesy, Edwards said, "But if you have a business card I'd be happy to take it. What firm did you say you're with?"

A heavy, three-inch binder on an overhead shelf dropped, slamming into the desk sergeant's back. He doubled over and swore.

"Nice shelving," Lina said, and stormed out.

She walked a couple of blocks to her car, got in, and grabbed her phone. "He's been gone for a half-hour, but the tracking device says he's still at the station. I told you that two of us weren't enough to stake out the building."

The coolness of Hannah's voice belied her words. "Don't blame me for your incompetence. Drive around the area for a while – he doesn't have a car, he may be on foot."

"Unless he's doing his vanishing jumps."

"Those only go so far, and he obviously can't do them in front of humans. Tell Frederic to do the same thing, drive around and watch for him. If you see him, don't do anything, just contact me and don't lose him again."

Hannah disconnected. Devin, standing next to her in the monitor room, said, "He found the tracking device."

"And left it in the police station when he took off a half-hour ago." Hannah's eyes were black. "He could be anywhere. With anyone."

She pressed a button on the phone. "Parcell, this is Hannah. Call me as soon as you hear this. It's urgent."

.

"Do you think you hurt him bad?" Sam asked.

Dean had been quiet all day, and Sam hadn't pushed him. He'd spent some time buying banker's boxes and duffel bags, then putting into them items he and Dean wouldn't be using in the next couple of days. Finally, just before dinner, Dean had started talking about yesterday's battle; about (briefly) his disappointment with Castiel; and finally about the fight in the convenience store, which, he was pretty sure, was recorded on a store security camera. Now they were sitting at the dining table, their dinner dishes empty and pushed to one side.

"Not too bad," Dean said. "Bloody nose, black eye. The thing is, I didn't have to hurt him at all. It was like – I got some kind of satisfaction out of it. Almost, almost joy."

He stared at the table and Sam watched him.

"I think I need to get back to a normal human life right now. Stop dealing with demons, thinking like one. Make money some way other than stealing it. Although how I'm going to get a job, I don't know. I've had one employer the last seven years, I can't exactly use them as a reference."

"You'll figure out something," Sam said. "And until you do, I'll get work, tell 'em I've been freelance. You gave up your life and committed crimes to – well, to pull me out of Hell. I can support both of us until we get it all worked out."

"Even after our two days at Chateau Marmont, I've got enough money left to get us someplace else. Unless – you want to stay in California?"

Sam shook his head. "But not back to Austin, either. You know the first thing that would happen, I'd run into Sarah."

"Well – maybe she'd forgive you, you could – "

"I've changed. I'm not the guy Sarah loved. I can tell. It'd be too hard for both of us. Maybe I can write her a letter and mail it from here – explaining or apologizing or – but what would I tell her?"

"Yeah. And Texas wouldn't be a good idea for me either. There's probably still a warrant out for my arrest. Although that would be something I could do now too – mail the stuff I took back to the company, some really slow way, so we've been gone for days by the time they get it."

Sam smiled. "I'll tell you, I'd rather face your former employers than Sarah."

"Me too."

They both chuckled a little.

Then Sam asked, "Cas?"

After a moment Dean said, "I want to talk to him one more time. I was thinking last night – Maybe he thinks that if he goes with us he's, you know, committed to me for some long-term thing, and that isn't what he wants. I want to tell him he can get out of here with us, and we can help him through the transition to human, just as friends. The Three Musketeers. I really want him to be human, be happy, but we don't have to be a big item if he doesn't want that."

"I actually think he does," Sam said. "I've seen the way he looks at you. But I also saw your shoulder this morning."

"Mm," Dean said ruefully.

"What was that, an ownership brand?"

"How did – oh, yeah."

"Oh, yeah. I had one of those things inside my mind for six months. I know how they think. They're not capable of love, but they're capable of territoriality. If Cas comes with us and doesn't go human, it's going to end up being you or him. And since I have the tie-breaker on that one, you know how that'll turn out."

Dean tossed him a half-smile. "So yeah, phone Cas – "

"You got his number?"

"Finally. Yesterday, just before we went into the forest. Phone Cas, tell him he can come with us, go through some pain but then be happy and human, or he can stay here and go completely demonic and wind up back in Hell someday. And I need him to get rid of the weapons from the fight. I've got a trunk full of angel-bullet guns and bloody angel blades wrapped in a bloody coat, I really don't want to get stopped by a highway patrolman who wants to prove something."

"Yeah, that might not be too good." And after a moment, "So should we – "

"Back in Black" sounded from the kitchen counter. Dean rose, picked his phone up, looked at Sam with a nod, and accepted the call. "Hey."

"You must leave town immediately," Castiel said.

"What happened?"

"What happened was that you decided to have a brawl in a Sucro-owned convenience store. There are special cameras over the coffee areas, meant to catch Terrestrials plotting, and the feeds go directly to my home."

"In Bel Air? Are you kidding?"

"Hannah saw your face clearly, and recognized you as the burglar I supposedly killed. She suspects that I let you live so that you would commit the recent killings."

"Crap. You know, Cas, it would've been helpful if you'd told me about the SavorStops."

"I admit that. On the other hand, it would have been helpful if you hadn't drawn attention to yourself by beating a drunk."

There was a pause, then Dean said, "Yeah."

And after another pause Castiel said, "We have both failed, and we must both take action."

"Sam and I can be ready in about a half-hour. He says, he says it's OK with him if you come with us. We can be the Three Musketeers – all for one, one for all."

Castiel's tone softened. "Tell him – I appreciate the offer. But I'm going to contact my Terrestrial handler and rejoin them."

Dean looked at the floor, took a breath.

Then he looked up. "What do I do about all the bloody weapons in my trunk?"

A moment's thought. "Give them to me. The Terrestrials need them."

"All right. Are you in Bel Air now?"

"Downtown Los Angeles, without transportation. I'm going to take a cab to LAX and rent a car, then I'll drive out to San Bernardino."

"Too long. Go someplace near the airport. About the time you have your car and get there, I'll get there, and Sam will stay here and get us packed."

"All right. Let's try the Embassy Suites near LAX. I'll wait in the lobby to hear from you and my Terrestrial handler."

"I'll meet you there in an hour and a half or so."

"It may take me longer. I'll be making driving maneuvers to be sure I'm not followed."

"Keep me posted. And, be careful."

"I will." Cas disconnected, and then Dean did too.

Sam was standing. "What?"

Dean told him, ending with, "Crap. I've put Cas' life in real danger because I was an asshole. All those years he spent getting in good with the Loyalists, shot to hell."

"Well, but Dean, he was the one who made the change. He could've stayed under the radar forever, but he decided he wanted to start a war among the Loyalist leadership. Once he got that started, it spiraled out of control, and it was pretty inevitable that someone would make a misstep that would blow everything up."

"Well – thanks for the excuse."

"Now. What are you doing while I'm supposedly here packing?"

"I'm gonna meet Cas near LAX and give the weapons back to him. He's going to give them to the Terrestrial demons, which – " Dean shrugged, his face sad – "I guess, is better."

"I'm coming with you."

"This isn't going to be dangerous. Cas won't show if he's being tailed. And they don't know who or where I am, just my face."

"You're not hearing me, Dean."

"And you're not hearing me," Dean snapped. His gaze shifted. "I want to say goodbye to Cas."

After a moment, Sam said, "OK. But call every fifteen minutes."

"On the freeway? I'll call you when I get off the freeway and before I start back."

"Don't forget. I'll have stuff boxed up and ready to throw in the Impala by the time you get here."

"We'll top off the tank on the way out of town, start on the 10 going east, and decide where we're goin' from there."

"Sounds good. Wait."

Sam went to the closet and pulled out the long box, which Dean had left unlocked since Sam recovered substantially from possession. He popped it open, pulled out the gun and two extra bullets in a container, re-closed it, and handed the box to Dean. "Give him the jawbone and the blade, while you're at it." He handed the angel-bullet gun to Dean. "But keep this."

Although he'd reloaded it after shooting at Hex, Dean checked the gun. "Glad Cas gave us those bullets he took off Megaera's body, but I hope we don't need 'em." He put the gun into the back of his waistband, pulled on his jacket, and grabbed the box. "Back in two or three hours. We'll be at the Embassy Suites, near the airport."

"Call."

"Yes, Grandma."

.

Hannah was conferring with Devin and Inzur in the monitor room when Parcell walked down the hall from another room. "Well, finally!" she snapped.

He raised an eyebrow. "Hannah, I interrupted a delightful evening to drive out here and scry for the renegade that your people lost. I'd think a more grateful tone would be called for."

She took a breath. "It is. You're right. But you know how important this is. Do you have a location?"

"Everything old is new again. He's at LAX."

"Damnation." All three rose, and Hannah asked Parcell, "Can you stay here, make sure that he's still at LAX when we get there, or track him in a plane?"

"Scrying isn't a homing device. I'll be able to tell you if he's moving again, and when he comes to rest I'll be able to tell you where he is. If he moves I can probably tell you if he's in the city or moving away fast, as in a jet, but I can't guarantee that."

"Well, let us know as much as you can. And – thank you for your assistance, Parcell."

"Thank you for the chance to accumulate more favors."

She nodded and left with Devin and Inzur. Parcell went back to the room where he was scrying.

.

Castiel carefully observed the headlights of the car behind him as he drove down the ramp to Highway 1 in his rental car. The headlights were all he could distinguish in the dark. It seemed like they were following his car closely, but as both cars moved onto the freeway, Castiel maintained an even 55 miles per hour and the other car blew past him. He smiled a little.

He took an eastbound exit to begin the first of his anti-tailing maneuvers.

.

"I'm off the freeway, sitting at a stoplight, still alive," Dean told Sam.

"Have you heard from Cas yet?"

"Just called him. He's sure he's not being followed, so he's headed for the hotel. I think we'll get there about the same time."

"Don't hang around there."

"Hell, no. Cas thinks they might have a sorcerer scrying for him, so it's important for him to keep moving. I wish – "

After a moment Sam said, "Well, maybe he'll jump in the Impala and keep moving with you. It'd be the smart thing to do. I'm guessing if he turned human he'd be a different enough entity that they wouldn't be able to find him by scrying."

"Good thought. I'll suggest that. Call you later."

"Stay safe," Sam said, but Dean had already disconnected.

.

Dean got to the hotel a few minutes before Castiel, and sat in the lobby reading a newspaper until he saw a tan coat in the corner of his eye. He looked up just as Castiel saw him and moved over to him.

Dean stood and spoke low. "I've got the Impala parked at one side of the hotel. There's a Dumpster and some bushes that make it a little obscure. You want to bring your car around and we'll make the transfer?"

Castiel nodded, and together they walked to the parking lot. As Cas unlocked the car, Dean chuckled. It was a white Toyota Prius hatchback. "Well, if you wanted the opposite look in a car from what you usually have, this does it."

They got into the car, and Dean asked, "Have you heard from the Terrestrials yet?"

"Not yet. I texted the extraction code, but it may be taking them a while to put things in place."

There was an odd note in his voice that made Dean look at him sharply. "After everything you've done, they wouldn't just leave you hanging out here, would they?"

"I don't believe so," Cas said, as if it were an interesting scientific question, and started the car. "Which way?"

Dean looked at him incredulously, then pointed. Castiel headed for the side of the building he indicated.

"Cas," Dean said, and ran out of words. He tried again. "Cas. Please. Come with us. You've done your part for your demon buddies. Get the hell out of here with me. With Sam and me. We don't have to be together, we can just be – just be friends. Just don't spend the rest of time hanging out with hate-filled – things who don't give a damn about you. Sam thinks, if you turn human, you'll be a different enough being that scrying won't be able to find you. You'll be free."

Castiel focused on finding Dean's car, pulling up next to it, the trunks side by side. Then he said, "I'll never be free, Dean. I will always carry the memory of what I did as a demon. I don't deserve – "

He looked directly at Dean. "I don't deserve you."

He turned off the car. "And even so, it would – I would – be pleased – if you would stay. You wouldn't have to be involved in demonic warfare, just – with me."

"Yeah. I would have to be. You'd be in danger all the time, I wouldn't just be able to ignore that. And – well."

Abruptly, Dean left the car, and Cas did the same. Cas opened the trunk of the rental car as Dean opened the Impala's trunk. Together they transferred the weapons, then each closed the trunk of his car.

"I'm sorry that I screwed up your life," Dean said. "But that's why I can't stay. The guy yesterday – he was a jerk, but I didn't need to beat him like that. I was, upset, and I guess I felt like hitting him would – "

"You were in pain. It lessened your pain, at least for a time, to hurt someone else."

"Yeah. Exactly what you go through. I can't – I don't want to be like a demon, Cas. I want to be human. And I want you to be human with me."

"I wish," Castiel said. "I wish I could."

After a moment, they moved toward each other. Dean put his arms around Castiel and they kissed until Cas made a little choked sound of pain.

Dean lifted his face, but didn't let go. "I opened a gmail account this afternoon," he said. "Combination of our names, destiel. D-E-S-T-I-E-L. You change your mind, or you need anything, you let me know. I don't care where you are. I'll get there."

Castiel nodded, and they kissed again.

Then Castiel pushed him away gently and turned, going to the driver's door of his car. Dean watched Castiel over the Prius' roof as he moved to the driver's door of the Impala. They gave each other a last look.

A male demon ran out from behind the shrubbery, between the cars, straight at Dean. No time to draw his weapon and no space to evade, Dean simply threw a punch that connected but didn't affect the demon. The demon hit him, and Dean collapsed.

Castiel shouted "Dean!" and vanished, reappearing beside Dean, ready to set the other demon on fire.

"Castiel!" Hannah's voice, clear and sharp.

Devin, the demon who'd punched Dean, raised his hands. Dean stirred, and Castiel looked around.

Hannah was crouched on top of the Dumpster on the other side of Cas' car, pointing an angel blade down at Dean. The instant that Cas looked up at her, Devin drew a gun and pointed it down at Dean.

"Don't make a move," Hannah said. "Don't say a word. If you attack me, Devin will kill your human. If you attack Devin, I will send this blade into your human's heart. If you somehow manage to neutralize both of us at once, Inzur is hiding nearby, and he will kill your human."

"Hannah – "

"Not a word. Raise your hands."

He did so as Inzur emerged from the other side of Dean's car and joined Devin. Devin searched Dean's jacket and waistband. Dean clenched his fists, clearly wanting to attack, looking up at Inzur's gun and over at Hannah's blade, as Devin took his phone.

Hannah pulled the phone from Castiel's suit jacket and the angel blade from under his coat, then, for some reason, pulled the belt from his coat. "Get into the car, put your hands on the wheel, and keep them there."

"Gun," Devin said, pulling it out from under Dean's back. "What do you want to bet it has angel-blade bullets?"

"Get him in the car. Turn your head, Castiel."

She gagged him tightly with his coat belt, the fabric pressing his tongue so that he couldn't enunciate. "If you try to touch that, I will kill your human. He has destroyed you. I would take great pleasure in destroying him. Put your hands on the wheel and don't move them."

Devin and Inzur hauled Dean to his feet, although Dean tried to pull away. Inzur ran to the other side of the Prius and got in the back seat behind Castiel. Devin stuck Dean's own gun in Dean's back, and with a, "Yeah, yeah, I got it," Dean climbed into the back between the two guards. Finally Hannah got into the front seat next to Castiel, pointing her weapon at him, and told him the route she wanted him to drive back to the Bel Air mansion.

Castiel glanced over his shoulder at Dean, who said, "I'm OK."

"Don't look at him," Hannah said. "He's nothing. Drive."


	10. Chapter 10

Castiel started the car and drove. Hannah rested the hand holding her blade on her knee, angled at Castiel.

"The first month that I was in Hell," she said, "I was suspended in the infernal emptiness with cables running through my body, in one hand and out the opposite foot. I couldn't understand how I could feel so much pain if I was dead, how I could even have a body if I was dead. I screamed and screamed. Did you go through that? Do you remember?"

Castiel gave a slight nod.

"No one came. No demons, no – nothing. Just me, surrounded by darkness and noise and flashes of light, pain that never stopped, never let up, and completely alone. I thought that was all of Hell. I pleaded, I offered anything if someone would release me, or just – show themselves. And finally I realized, this was all. No fellow prisoners, no rescue, never any end to the pain, no hope. I grew to accept it. And then one day, suddenly, I wasn't impaled by cables. I was stretched out on a rack. And the – thing standing over me said, 'You probably think this is a relief.' It laughed."

All the way to the mansion, in a quiet intense tone that shook only occasionally, Hannah described what she had been through at the hands of the infernal torturers – degradation, humiliation, moments of feigned sympathy followed by increased cruelty, illusions of escape and peace broken by unbelievable agony, unrelieved by death, unrelieved by numbness, a magically restored body subjected to mutilating torture for days on end, weeks on end, months on end, years on end, decades on end.

Dean swallowed down nausea. His only consolation was that Devin and Inzur weren't enjoying the recital any more than he was. They kept exchanging looks, then looking away, as though they were trying to escape their own memories.

Cas pressed the keypad code on the security gate, put his hand immediately back on the steering wheel, and drove to the front door. As he did so the door opened, and Lina and Frederic emerged.

Hannah stepped out of the car. "Was everyone else willing to leave for the night?"

"Everyone but Ricardo," Lina said. "But I told him that the request came directly from Castiel, and then he agreed."

Hannah sighed, shook her head. "He'll have to get over that. The human's in the back, I want him completely surrounded. I'll follow with Castiel. Interrogation room."

Devin pulled Dean's arm. He got out of the car, and the four others formed a tight, armed circle around him. They walked inside as Hannah circled the car and opened the driver's door, putting her blade away to do it.

Castiel looked like an old man bent and crippled by arthritis. He struggled out of the car and stood, looking at Hannah, the corners of his eyes creased.

"Is that sympathy?" Hannah was trying to keep her voice even and cool, and failing. "Sympathy for me? Is that something your human taught you, along with a weak-armed gentle embrace and the murders of your colleagues?"

She pushed him aside, slammed the car door, stood in front of him. "If I don't come downstairs with you, your human will be killed. Even if you try to make an attack, they know that the priority is to murder the human before fighting back against you. You cannot leave with him. But your hands are free. No one else is here. You can destroy me. You will have a car and your powers, you'll be free to escape. Your connection to this – animal will be broken, and you can begin to recover yourself."

She stood close in front of him, put her arms around his neck, untied the belt gagging him and tucked it in his coat pocket, looking in his eyes the while. She stepped back. "Please make it quick."

Castiel shook his head.

"Why?" Perhaps she had sounded like that on the rack in Hell. "Why? Sympathy for me? Love for that animal? Do you want to die with him? Why?"

Castiel was quiet. "I think you understand, Hannah. I think the pain of understanding is wracking you already."

She dropped her head.

Then she raised it and straightened her back. Her eyes were black. "You can't be a demon with human failings, Castiel. You have to make a choice."

She pulled her blade again. "Interrogation room. Let's get this horror over with."

Parcell had apparently just joined the others in the interrogation room. As Dean was brought in, Parcell was saying, " – must be joking, I wouldn't miss this for the whole netherworld!"

"I recognize you," Dean said, as casually as though he weren't standing between two armed demons with a third and fourth behind him. "Day of the bombing, I was on a hill overlooking the house."

Parcell's face lost its amusement. "Were you?"

Dean raised his hands. "That was all Hex and Lester. I was just there trying to memorize you guys, your cars. If I'd known half of you would be dead in fifteen minutes, I wouldn't have bothered. But I saw that bomb go off, with Cas safely outside the house and Lester pulling him to get him away. And I saw him go back inside and help you out."

"It was actually due to my aide that I lived through that, but I must say – Oh, I see!" Parcell's eyes went wide. "You're trying to appeal to my gratitude! Because you think that a demon has any!"

He and Lina laughed outright; Devin, Inzur, and Frederic grinned.

"Don't talk to this thing, Parcell," Hannah said as she brought Castiel into the room at swordpoint. "Castiel, walk into the devil's trap."

It was the same one, scorched into the ceiling, where Castiel had reduced Vulcan to lumps of carbon six days before. The floor had been cleaned since.

"Don't," Dean said roughly. "They're going to kill us anyway, no use making it easy for them."

Hannah grabbed Inzur's gun and shot.

Everyone jumped, looked around.

There was a bullet hole in the drywall behind Castiel, about two inches to his right. Dean couldn't help looking a little impressed.

"If I wanted you dead, you'd be dead now," Hannah said, returning Inzur's gun. "Go."

Castiel hobbled under the devil's trap. Dean studied the markings on the ceiling.

"You, too," Hannah said.

At gunpoint, Dean joined Cas – looking puzzled, because of course the trap had no power over him. Inzur moved right up to the border of the trap, keeping his gun on Dean.

"Do you know why I said what I did when we were driving here?"

"I presume," Castiel said, "to remind me of the fate that awaits me when you arrange for my exorcism."

"Yes."

Castiel raised his head, as clearly painful as that was. "This is an overreaction to foolish behavior on my part. Yes, I released Dean that first night. I found him attractive. Yes, I have been intimate with a human. I'm scarcely the first to have done this. And it doesn't implicate me – or Dean – in any of the murders that have taken place recently. You heard Lester say that he was conspiring with Hex to attain power. I fear, Hannah, that you are not – fully objective in this matter. Your personal hatred for my lover makes you believe me capable of the worst kinds of treachery."

"Your 'lover'?" Hannah sounded like she was about to vomit. "You're not capable of love, Castiel. You've forgotten what you are. He's made you forget. He has dragged you into his cesspool of humanity, emotion and – and sex and filth and wallowing like pigs. And yes, treachery. He lured you into thinking that you were helping him and his kind, these parasites that think they deserve to rule Earth. You let him do what he wanted to other demons, as long as he would let you do what you want to him."

"Neither of us had anything to do with – "

"I haven't heard that – " Hannah pointed at Dean – "speak more than five sentences, and even with the electronic alteration, I can tell that's your hitman. The one who killed Lester with a tempered jawbone, perhaps one week after a jawbone went missing from Mr. Vincent's personal armory. Inzur, who had access to that armory?"

"Mr. Vincent, of course. Mrs. Vincent. Edward Vincent. And Castiel."

"Did Hex or Lester have access?"

"No, ma'am. Mr. Vincent barely even knew who Lester was. He liked how vigorously Hex performed his personal missions, but he didn't trust Hex with unfettered access to an armory."

"Devin? The gun that you took from this thing?"

"Had angel-blade bullets."

"Parcell, how did Vulcan die?"

"Quickly. I will say that Castiel tortured him well, but once he had the information he wanted, he should have sent Vulcan back to the infernal torturers for his part in murdering three of us. Instead, he burned him in a flash. Mercifully. Like a sympathetic human."

"And?"

"And," Parcell pointed, "I saw Castiel's boy-toy pretending to be a gardener outside of Malazir's house, the day of her death."

No one else besides Hannah had heard that yet. Lina gasped, Devin looked in astonishment at Parcell, Castiel froze. Dean tried to look like Parcell was making up a ridiculous fairy tale.

Hannah's voice was steel. "Like Vulcan, you deserve to be sent back to the torture chambers, Castiel. But – I probably shouldn't – but I'm taking into account the pernicious effect this creature has had on you, twisting your infernal spirit. Under certain circumstances, I will let you live. This – " she pointed to the devil's trap above – "will be your home. You will remain here considering the crimes you've committed against us. We will bring you food and water, eventually some books. Eventually you will be asked for your advice, and we'll see if you're as helpful then as you were to Mr. Vincent. We will tell everyone outside of this room that you've taken a long trip, recruiting others to fill the gaps created by the recent murders, but that you are communicating with me by telephone or internet. Eventually, when you've proven that you've purged the human corruption from your system, you will be released. It will not be a comfortable existence, but I think we can agree that it's better than centuries with the eternal torturers."

"No question," Castiel said. His voice was a little hoarse. "But you said – under certain circumstances."

Hannah turned her angel blade, extending the hilt over the invisible perimeter of the devil's trap. Castiel took it and four of the other demons raised their weapons, glancing at each other and at Hannah. Parcell just tilted his head a little, smiling as if entertained.

"We will allow you to live," Hannah said, "if you kill this thing. You must make a choice between Hell and humanity, Castiel. If you cannot kill it, we will do that, and then send you back to Hell. But I believe in your infernal spirit, Castiel. Plunge the blade into him, and you will have taken your first step toward redeeming yourself."

The blade trembled a little, but Castiel's gaze was unwavering. "This is cruel."

"Of course it is. Hell is cruel. Existence is cruel. Demons are cruel. Claiming to be someone's close adviser and conspiring to kill him is cruel." She took a breath. "And none of them will be as cruel as the death that human will have if I'm allowed to kill him."

Castiel bent a little as a wave of pain racked him.

Then he turned to face Dean. "Please kneel."

Dean swallowed. "Oh good. You're gonna knight me."

"Decapitation will be – much faster, much more painless, than death by impalement or blood loss."

Dean gave him a stricken look. "Cas."

"Please, Dean."

Slowly, Dean went down on one knee.

"I don't know your religious beliefs, but ready yourself for death."

"I'm human. We're born ready to die."

Castiel drew back the blade.

Then it spun in his hand and he thrust it sideways, over the invisible border, into Inzur's gut.

Inzur's eyes flashed orange and Dean pulled the devil's trap gun from his ankle holster. Devin roared, pushing Hannah aside, and Dean shot him square in the forehead. He collapsed backward, falling into Frederic as Frederic tried to run toward Cas with an angel blade, and sat on the floor looking shocked.

Dean rolled as Lina fired a gun at him. Castiel threw the angel blade at her and it hit home. Hannah grabbed Devin's gun. A devil's trap bullet wouldn't keep Hannah from firing a gun, so Dean tackled her. They wrestled for control of the gun. Frederic, seeing that Cas was weaponless and still trapped, focused on Dean, but Dean and Hannah were rolling and grappling, and Frederic jumped around trying to figure out how to impale Dean without stabbing Hannah. Dean kicked desperately at Inzur's gun, which lay on the floor by the body.

"Kill him!" Hannah screamed. "I don't care what happens to me!"

Frederic grabbed the blade's hilt in a two-handed grip aimed straight down as Castiel grabbed the gun Dean had kicked into the devil's trap and yelled, "Frederic!"

The commanding voice jolted Frederic's attention, and Castiel shot. Frederic died and Castiel aimed at Parcell. The sorcerer had been watching the battle as if it were a fascinating cage match, but vanished when Castiel pointed Inzur's gun at him. He reappeared by the door to the interrogation room, opened it, and vanished again.

Hannah vanished. Dean, on the floor, lunged for Devin's gun, but Hannah reappeared, standing, and kicked him in the face. He dropped onto his back and Hannah planted her foot on his throat, pushing down. Even with both arms and all of his strength, Dean knew he had only seconds before his windpipe was crushed.

Castiel fired Inzur's gun at the ceiling three times, chipping and splintering the devil's trap enough to break it. He threw himself out of the circle at Hannah, pinning her arms to her sides as they fell. She tried to grab for Inzur's gun, her forearms flailing, as Dean sucked in air and dragged himself two feet to Devin's gun. He grabbed it with a whoop of relief, leaped up, looked surprised, and fell down.

Castiel pulled Hannah to a sitting position in front of him, keeping her arms pinioned. "Dean!"

Dean, looking at his thigh, cursed. "I think the redhead got me. Didn't even feel it until just now. Adrenaline. Crap."

"Stop struggling, Hannah," Castiel said gently. "It's over. You've lost."

She gave way, hanging limply, supported only by his arms, her long hair covering her face.

Castiel kept hold of her, looked over at Dean. "Can you walk?"

"Think so. I don't think she got bone, just a through-and-through in the muscle. Hurts like a son of a bitch." Dean stood, sucked in a breath. "Yeah, I'll be OK."

"You – " Hannah was working her way through utter disbelief. "You cannot still be alive. After everything you've done. You can't be."

"Well – " Dean put weight on his injured leg, grimaced. "I lied a minute ago, Hannah. Humans aren't born ready to die, it usually shocks the hell out of us. But we are born ready to fight."

"It doesn't matter. I'll kill you for what you've done to Castiel."

Dean shrugged and began looking over the floor. He still had Devin's gun, and Cas still had Inzur's. Lina's gun lay on the floor by her hand. The devil's trap gun was, appropriately, in the devil's trap. Hannah's angel blade was still in Lina's body; Frederic's was on the floor. Devin was still sitting on the floor, trying to send Dean flying with a wave of his hand, but it wasn't working, because of the devil's-trap bullet in his head.

Dean picked up the two loose guns. He put two in his waistband pointed the third at Hannah.

Castiel released Hannah, stood, and put Inzur's gun in his coat pocket. Hannah remained on the floor, the fight drained out of her for the moment.

"Before you threaten a human any further, Hannah, there's something you should know. I have been working as an agent for the Terrestrials for several years. Since before I knew you, and long before I knew Dean."

She looked up at him, speechless.

"Do you remember the decision by Mr. Vincent that resulted in the death of Benthes? The mission by Mr. Lincoln that resulted in his capture by the Terrestrials? The information from the SavorStop cameras that resulted in the loss of so many Loyalist weapons? I was behind all of those, Hannah. I planned the death of Mr. Vincent. I planned the death of Malazir. If you're going to blame anyone, blame Mr. Vincent. He was quite easy to read and to manipulate."

Dean shot Hannah.

Castiel looked up sharply at him. So did Hannah. Then she looked at the bullet wound in her leg and looked back up again.

"Devil's-trap bullet," Dean said. "Let's get the hell out of here."

He kept the devil's-trap gun and one of the angel-bullet guns, giving the other one to Castiel.

They made it as far as the front hall, where the front door was just opening. They both backed up around a corner as Ricardo walked in, stood in the hallway for a moment, then called, "Hannah? Consigliere?"

They froze in place, Dean holding an angel-blade gun.

Ricardo called again, his voice moving up the staircase.

"What did you do with the keys when you pulled the Prius up in front?" Dean whispered.

"Left them in the ignition."

Dean clapped him on the back, and they headed for the door.

When they opened it, two cars were just pulling up to the security gate. They closed the door quickly and Dean swore.

"The tunnel," Castiel said. "I had it installed before the staff moved in, as an escape hatch if the Loyalists found out who I was actually working for. No one else living knows about it."

Dean thought for just a second, nodded. "We pull Hannah and the other guy out into the hall, blindfold them, they won't know which direction we went. Can you conjure gags and blindfolds from the Magic Coat?"

Castiel did so. "I must say, I'll miss being able to do this."

They bound, blindfolded and gagged Devin and Hannah, fending off Devin's punches and curses. Hannah didn't resist at all, merely swallowed a groan of pain as Castiel lifted her and put her down in the hall.

Dean, having disposed of Devin with a lot less care, was already at the sink. Castiel closed the door partway to block the sound of the false wall sliding back.

They staggered down the stairs. When they were in the tunnel, and Cas had closed the false wall with a button there, they began limping as fast as they could go, which wasn't any too fast, for either of them.

Dean shot a glance sideways. "Hannah sounded like you look."

"Your wound is bleeding badly. Will you be able to make it to the end of the tunnel?"

"I'll have to."

Castiel pulled the belt of his trench coat out of his pocket and tied it around Dean's wound.

They staggered forward. After a few minutes, Castiel moved to Dean's left side and supported him so he wouldn't have to put so much weight on the injured leg.

"Isn't that going to hurt you? Helping me?" Dean asked, his voice quiet.

"At this point – everything hurts."

They didn't speak again until they reached the end of the tunnel and staggered up the staircase. Castiel lifted the manhole cover, looked around, blinded any nearby security cameras, scrambled out, helped Dean out, and replaced the manhole cover.

They both dropped, sitting on the ground in the angle of shrubbery that half-hid the manhole cover.

"We need a plan," Dean said. "This leg needs treatment. I really don't want to go to a hospital, they'd have to report a gunshot wound and that would bring the cops into it, but I need some kind of first aid or I'm gonna be no use for anything."

"Can Sam help?"

Dean looked rueful. "Yeah, when he gets here in an hour and a half after we get a phone somewhere. You had to get me to move so far away, huh?"

"It seemed like a good idea," Castiel was looking at something across the park, "at the time."

Dean looked over. A young woman was walking a small dog under the lights of a walking path around the park.

"I recognize her. She works for one of my neighbors. We will abduct her, hide in the house while we treat your injury, and steal their car."

Dean looked at the dog-walker, who laughed as she disconnected a phone call and put the phone back in her pocket. "Ah, crap. The poor woman's going to think she's gonna be raped and murdered."

"Well, she won't be."

Dean shook his head. "OK. Desperate times."

He needed Cas' help to stand. They limped onto the path, walking toward the young woman and the dog. "A Yorkie," Dean mumbled. "I hate Yorkies."

The young woman saw their pathetic progress and actually hurried to them. "What's the matter? Did you hurt yourself?" She had a Spanish accent.

"Got mugged," Dean said. "And the guys stole our phones. Could you let us into your house? I really need some first aid."

"No, but let me call an ambulance for you."

She reached for her phone, stopped dead and sucked in a breath as Dean pulled a gun from under his jacket.

"I'm afraid that doesn't work for us," Dean said, as the dog started yapping and growling. "We can't have a hospital or cops involved with this. But look, all we need is a place to get off the street and medical supplies."

"And a car," Castiel said.

"And whiskey," Dean said. Cas looked at him. "Pain-killer."

"That's the house, is it not?" Cas said, pointing.

Dean moved beside the woman to put the gun in her back, and the dog erupted with shrill barks. The tension, pain, and annoyance finally showed as Dean snapped, "Lady, shut up the damn dog!"

Castiel crouched in front of the dog, which went rigid and snarled. Cas' elbows were on his knees, one hand slightly extended, as he said to the dog, "There is nothing to fear."

The dog, with one whimpering yip, went silent; moved forward to smell the extended hand; then began wagging his tail and licking Cas' hand.

"OK, that either says something good about you or something bad about Yorkies, I'm not sure which," Dean said. "Let's go."

The woman didn't want to do it, but she didn't seem to fear for her life either. She glanced down at Dean's leg as he limped along, and he seriously hoped she didn't intend to kick it out from under him, because she could have.

A long walkway led from the street to the front door. When they were about halfway across the lawn Castiel said, "Oculi mortui caeci sunt." The woman looked at him, then at Dean for an explanation, but he was grim-faced, his mouth tense.

"Who else is home?" Castiel asked. "Before you answer, bear in mind that surprise appearances could be very bad for the people who make them."

She was silent for a moment. "No one. But I expect them back soon."

When they were on the front porch the woman raised her hand to touch the security keypad. "This is the same system that I have," Castiel said. "Please don't touch any button that will sound a silent alarm. I will know it."

She drew a breath, nodded, pressed five buttons on the keypad, then used a key to open the door. The dog went in first, then the woman, turning on the lights of a large foyer that opened into a huge living room. Dean followed her, and Castiel swept the street with his gaze before closing the door behind them. The woman re-set the security code.

"Wow," Dean said simply as they moved into the living room, which was replete with dark oak furniture, crystal vases of professionally arranged fresh flowers, a massive stone fireplace, and a piano.

The woman gasped, and they both looked at her. She was looking at Dean's leg. In the well lit room, the quantity of blood on his jeans was very clear. Even Castiel's belt was darkened and soaked by now, and Dean's face was pale.

"Yeah, not good. Is there a bathroom down here?"

"Yes. But if you want first aid, those – the closest are in a bathroom near the top of the stairs."

"Of course," Dean said. He pulled in a breath and headed for the staircase.

"I'll – " Cas began.

"There's – " the woman began, and stopped herself.

Then she continued. "There's an elevator. Down that hall."

Dean gave her the best smile he could. "Thanks," he said, and began heading down the hall, mumbling the camera-blinding spell. He paused and turned, pointing to his gun, looking at Cas. "Um – "

"Oh." Cas pulled one of the guns out of his coat and leveled it at her as Dean limped away.

"He was shot, wasn't he?"

"Yes."

After a moment she asked, "May I sit down?"

"Yes."

She sat in a chair. The dog was running around the living room, whining a little. He kept returning to Castiel to sniff at his legs. He seemed, not illogically, to be trying to figure out what Castiel was.

"Mocha," the woman said. "Come here."

The dog went to her and she picked him up, holding him on her lap and petting him.

"What's your name?" Castiel asked.

After a moment she said, "Elena." She looked up. "What's yours?"

Castiel smiled at her. "Where are keys to a working car?"

"There's only one car here. Um, the keys, spare keys, are in a drawer in the kitchen next to the dishwasher. It has a little elephant on the keychain."

"An elephant." Castiel was a little bemused.

"Mrs. – the lady of the house – " Elena was being as chary with names as Cas was – "she works to help endangered species."

"Ah." After a moment, Castiel nodded. "Yes. That should be a concern of mine now, too."

He went to another chair, supporting his weight by grabbing one chair arm with his non-gun hand, and lowered himself slowly, creases deepening around his eyes.

"You're hurt, too."

Castiel nodded. "It's a condition, rather than an injury. I feel like the marrow of my bones is on fire. Which is a certain kind of justice."

"You should both go to the hospital. He – " she pointed upstairs – "he's lost a lot of blood."

Castiel nodded. "Unfortunately, going to the hospital would bring the police into the picture. And we can't have that."

"It's hard to believe that you've committed a crime."

She was probing, her voice very meek and unthreatening. Castiel admired her attempt, and he was sure that Detective Edwards would too, when he questioned her eventually.

"The man with the injury is a very good man, trying to help me. I am – have been – a demon."

She couldn't help the little smile that pulled at a corner of her mouth. "You don't look like it."

"That's one of the reasons I was successful."

It took a long time, or seemed like it, but finally they heard the elevator coming back down. Unexpectedly, Dean was holding a sheet with its corners folded and twisted, carrying a small burden, and two other sheets and a few ties over that arm. He said to Elena, "Liquor?"

She pointed back down the hall. "In the den."

He looked at Cas. "Want some?"

"I doubt it would help."

He looked at Elena. "You could probably use a drink."

"No, please."

He headed back down the hall and they heard him say, "Oh, good." After a little clinking he came back out to the living room, taking a swallow from a plastic tumbler he held with a paper napkin. He looked at Elena and pointed at the tumbler. "I'm guessing these aren't worth, like, a hundred dollars each."

She looked puzzled. "No. We mostly use them outdoors."

Dean drained the glass, put the folded sheet on the floor, and opened it enough to put the tumbler and napkin inside. Several bloody towels and boxes of cotton and bandages were already inside, along with a spray bottle of bleach-containing cleaner and crumpled paper towels. He looked up at Cas with a sideways smile. "I think I've caught all the DNA and fingerprints anyone else would find, but you never really know, do you?"

"And I won't be able to help with that."

"Wouldn't have it any other way. I'd rather go to prison than have you go to Hell."

Cas smiled a little. Elena looked back and forth between them, a crease between her brows.

Dean looked at her. "Car."

Castiel answered. "The spare key is in the kitchen, that way, in a drawer next to the dishwasher. It has an elephant charm attached to it."

Castiel stood slowly, and Dean went over to him, presenting his arm with the sheets and ties draped over it. "Take the ties and tie her up." Then he looked around "What the hell, no chairs in here you can tie anyone to."

"Perhaps the leg of the piano."

"Good idea. Would you go over and sit on the floor by the piano?"

Elena swallowed and nodded. She put the dog on the floor and said, "Go to bed, Mocha." Mocha headed for the den, giving Dean a quick snarl as he passed.

Dean went to the kitchen, grabbed a towel and pulled the drawer open, found the key. There was a door in one wall of the kitchen, and Dean used the towel to open that. One car sat in the three-car garage, a light blue Lexus, and when Dean pressed the door-unlock button the horn beeped and the lights came on.

He went back into the living room, where Castiel had pushed the piano bench aside and was kneeling behind Elena, tying her. Her phone sat on a side table across the large room.

"Don't tie her too gently," Dean said. "We don't want people thinking she was a part of this. In fact – "

He looked around, pulled the gun out of his waistband, turned it, took aim, turned his head, and smashed the butt down on the lip of a delicate vase. It shattered, bright thin crystal fragments glinting among flying drops of water, long-stemmed lilies dropping sadly into a pool on the floor.

Elena started violently. "That's what we'll do to you if you don't cooperate," Dean said, pointing to the vase.

"I did – I have – "

"You're not hearing me," Dean said. "You tell your employers and the police, I said that's what we'd do to you if you didn't cooperate."

Castiel gave him a straight flat gaze from beside the piano. "I'm quite sure that cost more than a hundred dollars."

"But if they're convinced she wasn't part of it, it's worth it, right? Don't forget to gag her. Wait. Are you gonna be OK until someone gets back? You gonna need any – insulin, or anything?"

She blinked. "No."

"OK. Gag her."

"You're – " She stopped herself, but couldn't resist. "You're very odd criminals."

Dean seemed to accept that; then he pointed at her. "Dibs on that as a name for a rock group."

Castiel gagged her, and they left through the kitchen.

Dean gave the blood-soaked trench coat belt back to Cas, who didn't look thrilled to get it, but accepted it. Dean looked around as they went through the garage. "See any gardening gloves or anything?"

Cas dipped into his pocket, around the gun there, and produced two pair of latex gloves. "Will these do?"

"Perfect. Put this sheet on the car seat, over the headrest and everything."

"Certainly," Cas said, and plucked the keys from Dean's hand as he took the sheet.

Dean stared at his empty hand. "If I didn't feel so crappy, I'd argue with that."

He put the bag o'DNA evidence in the back seat, covered the passenger seat with a sheet, and rested his hand on the gun in his jacket pocket as Cas backed out of the garage. "Straight to San Bernardino?" Castiel asked. "Or should we stop somewhere, buy telephones, and tell Sam we're coming?"

Dean looked at him like he was crazy. "Straight to the Embassy Suites to get the Impala."

"By now the staff – what remains of the staff – have found Hannah and Devin and have possibly even removed the devil's trap bullets from them. Those two know where the car is hidden, and some Loyalists may be lying in wait, assuming that we will return to it. It would be logical to leave the car behind."

Dean just looked at him.

"Very well. I admit I don't understand emotional attachment to a machine."

"You will when you're human."

Castiel was silent, but his chest rose and fell quickly.

"Not having second thoughts, are you?" Dean asked quietly.

Cas looked at him with a little smile. "No. And even if I were, it wouldn't matter. Something irrevocable happened back there. I don't know how to describe it, but when I wouldn't even entertain the thought of killing you, I felt something – shift in me. I cannot return to demonhood. The only remaining routes for me are humanity, or death from this pain."

"You are not going to die. We didn't go through this for you to keel over. You're going to live, you're going to be human, and you and me are going to be together until the end of our human lives. Got that?"

Cas nodded, though he bent over the steering wheel and his knuckles went white.

"And I promise that's the last time I'll say anything hopeful, or anything about love. I'm just going to insult and abuse you until you're human."

Castiel laughed softly. "That will help, thank you."

Dean sat back, ran a hand over his injured leg, looked out the window. "You have a good point, though. We'd better be prepared for an ambush when we get back to the car. Hell, if that sorcerer tracked you there, he may have gone straight there when he ducked out of the fight."

"I don't think we need to be too concerned about Parcell. He's an opportunist, not a fighter. He'll wait to see how the opinions of other demons fall, if Hannah is honored for trying to bring me in or punished for the result, what the effect of my being revealed as a double agent is. Hannah, on the other hand – "

" – is humiliated and heartbroken and royally pissed. Probably happy to risk her life to kill you, or me. Us."

"Before we went down to the interrogation room – when you were taken down there by Devin and the others – she offered to allow me to kill her and escape with the car, knowing that the instant her body was discovered you'd be killed. She was willing to sacrifice her life to sever my connections to humanity."

Dean rolled his eyes. "Shoulda done it and barged into the interrogation room, guns blazing."

"I would have only had Hannah's blade. You would have been the first casualty. All I could think of was some way to get a weapon into your hands."

"Yeah. The moment you asked me to kneel, I knew what you were up to. Can't tell you how happy I was that Devin was sloppy when he searched me."

"It wasn't surprising. Demons are so secure in their greater power that they tend to be careless with humans."

"Which was the reason you hired me in the first place."

Castiel shot him a sideways smile. "One of the reasons."

Dean smiled back, rubbed his leg again, and flinched. "OK. We need to come up with a plan to get my baby back without walking into a shredder made of angel blades. We each have two guns. What do we do?"

They discussed creeping up on the car, as Hannah and her squad had done to them, versus rolling boldly up in the Lexus prepared to fire, which wouldn't do the Lexus any good but would provide some cover for them. They came to a decision just before Castiel signaled for a right turn and pulled in to the Embassy Suites driveway.

And suddenly Dean lunged, grabbed the wheel, and wrenched the car to the left, directly into the path of a car that was just about to drive out.


	11. Chapter 11

Castiel slammed on the brakes, and happily the other driver had good reflexes, or the Lexus would have been T-boned on Dean's side by the oncoming 1967 Impala. As it was, Dean was able to open his door, banging it against the driver's side corner of the Impala's bumper. He crouched behind the door and brandished a gun around its edge. "Put down your weapon! Open the window and show your hands now! Or I'll shoot you right through the windshield!"

The window rolled down and a male voice said, "Bull, Dean. You're not gonna shoot this car."

Dean shot straight up, then wobbled on his injured leg. "Sam?"

.

The first priority was moving the Lexus so that it didn't block the driveway. As Castiel did that, parking in a double row of hotel guests' cars, Sam backed away from the drive and parked by a lamppost, which meant he had a well lighted view of Dean's bicolored jeans as Dean limped the few steps toward him.

He jumped out of the car. "Dean, what happened to your leg?"

Dean looked down. "Something happened to my leg?"

"I appreciate your sense of humor more at some times than at others."

"We had some excitement. Go help Cas with those sheets, would you? We were trying to keep our DNA out of the car, it's stolen."

Sam smiled. "Don't think they'll do DNA testing for a crime like car theft."

"They might if it's linked to a triple murder in Bel Air."

Sam swore, which was rare. "We've gotta get moving."

"Yes we do."

Cas had carefully folded the sheets inward on the car seats. He and Sam put them on the asphalt, put the bundle of first-aid items and the plastic tumbler Dean had used on top of them, and folded it into one big bundle.

At that point, Castiel dropped to his knees and went still, hardly breathing.

"Cas?" Sam asked. He looked over at Dean, who was leaning on the Impala, pressing his hand against his leg, and wasn't looking at them at the moment.

"Give me – a few seconds."

And after a few seconds, he went from almost not breathing to breathing heavily. With Sam's help, he got to his feet. "Man," Sam said, "you guys really went through something."

"We did. Dean must not drive. I believe he has stopped bleeding, but he lost a lot of blood previously, and had a drink to help the pain."

"Got it. Here we go."

Sam put the bundled sheets into the Impala's trunk and shook his head as Dean beckoned for the keys. "You've got shotgun. Cas told me you lost a lot of blood."

Dean looked disgruntled, but limped toward the passenger side. "Cas is a rat bastard."

"Little harsh, Dean."

"I promised him – " as he dropped into the passenger seat and Castiel climbed into the back – "I wouldn't say anything nice to him until he finishes becoming human."

Sam got in the car, closed the door, looked back at Castiel. "Is that what's going on with you?"

Castiel nodded, his eyes closed. "I keep reminding myself that it's not as bad as Hell."

Sam started the car and went down the driveway, glancing at Dean. "So it sounds like we're headed out of town."

"We are. Did you finish packing?"

"I had it finished before you called me from near LAX."

"I thought we agreed you'd stay in the apartment."

"You agreed I'd stay in the apartment. I looked at the prospect of sitting on my hands for two or three hours while you and Cas dodged a demonic sorcerer, and said the hell with it. I took a cab to Embassy Suites."

"What was the plan? I know you had one."

"Well, I knew by the time I got here, you and Cas would have had more than enough time to transfer the weapons and say your goodbyes. The plan was to find the car and see if you and maybe Cas were with it. If so, I'd join you in whatever you were doing." Dean made a slight choking sound, and Sam gave him a bitchface. "If you weren't with the car, I'd call you and tell you where I was. You gave me the car's spare key, so if any demonic sorcerer tried to give me any trouble, I'd run over him and get out."

"You and no weapon against the Capitol. See, this is why no one lets you make the plans."

"Very funny, Dean. Anyway, I found where you hid the car, started to get in, and realized that the keys were in the ignition. You would never leave the keys in that car willingly. I called you, no answer, didn't leave a message in case the phone was in the wrong hands."

"Devin had it. Damn, I forgot to get it back. So you knew we'd been taken away, you couldn't get hold of me – where were you going when we pulled in?"

"Cas' house. It was the only place I could think of to start a search."

"Smart, Sam, but it could've got you killed. There's at least three pissed-off demons there, maybe more. "

"What did you do to piss 'em off?"

"I'll tell you, but first let's pull into a parking lot and destroy your phone. We'll get others when we're away from here."

"Trying to think if there's anything I need badly on there. No. OK."

They turned into a parking lot, ground the hapless phone under the Impala's tires, buried it in a trash can, and continued toward the 10 freeway. Dean told Sam what had happened, with Castiel filling in from time to time.

Sam's eyes were wide by the end of the recital, but he kept his tone businesslike. "So three of them are dead. Parcell and Hannah and the guy who took your phone, they're alive, along with the guard who came in while you were trying to get out."

"Ricardo," Castiel said. "And there were two other cars that pulled up to the house right behind him. Apparently Hannah had told the other staff members to stay out for the rest of the night. It doesn't surprise me that Ricardo returned early, he's very protective, and so new that he might not realize that, in the past, an order from Hannah was an order from me. But I can't figure out who else would have defied Hannah's order."

After a moment, Dean said, "So where are we headed after San Bernardino?"

"I was thinking about this back at the apartment," Sam said. "We want to start by moving as far as fast as possible, so I was thinking we plow straight through to Phoenix. We'll get there about dawn, get some sleep. Then we start doing big zig-zags, just in the hopes of throwing off anyone else who might be tracking us. I was thinking maybe Rapid City, South Dakota, then Lincoln, Nebraska."

"Tracking my ass," Dean said, laughing. "You just want to see Mount Rushmore."

"Everyone in America has seen Mount Rushmore except me. I don't think it's irrational to want to go there. Big tourist attraction, lots of people – "

"In late March? It'll be freezing up there."

"There'll still be enough people that we can blend in to a crowd."

"We'll discuss it," Dean said in the tone of a stern father. "But the big question is, where do we end up?"

Sam glanced in the rear-view mirror. "I found out something yesterday, while you were romping around in the forest, that might affect this. There's been so much else going on, it never seemed the right time to bring it up. But I've been working on hacking into police databases for a few days, and yesterday I found out something that might be relevant to where we go. There's no warrant for your arrest, in Austin or anywhere in Texas."

"Are you kidding me?"

"No. A report was filed, and then the owner of the company called the cops and said it was a misunderstanding, he'd loaned out the items to a prospective client."

Dean tipped his head back against the window and laughed. "Jeff."

"Who's Jeff?"

"The owner. He's hyper-vigilant about public appearance, and you can kinda see his point. You don't want homeowners to think you hire shady people when they're deciding whether to trust you with home security. But he was fanatical about it. I can just imagine him making that call to the cops. 'Nope, no theft, no one crooked ever worked here, nothing for you guys to work on!'"

"Well, thanks to Jeff, there's no legal reason for us to avoid going back to  
Texas. If you want to."

"Do you?"

Sam was silent for a moment, just driving. "I feel like I'm a new person, I'd kind of like to make a new start. But if you want to, in a different city, that's fine."

"No, I'm up for a different state too. Cas? Anywhere you think would be best for us to go?"

"No." Castiel's voice was quiet, almost inaudible in the moving car. "I would suggest avoiding the coasts. As with humans, demons tend to congregate on the coasts, and those in the large cities are in better communication with each other."

"Middle of the country, small or mid-size town. Still leaves us a lot of options," Dean said. He tipped his head back again, and, glancing at him quickly, Sam could almost see tension and adrenaline draining out of him. He was asleep in a few moments.

He didn't even wake up when Sam closed the car door after parking outside the apartment. Cas helped as best he could, moving laboriously, but Sam did most of the loading, transferring bags and boxes from the apartment to the trunk and the floor of the back seat.

Only when the trunk was closed did Dean wake up a little, blinking at Sam as he got back behind the wheel. "Are we here?"

"We're here, we're loaded. Say goodbye to the L.A. area."

"Well, I was a big fat help."

"I want you to get as much sleep as possible," Sam said. "Just in case Hannah or someone comes after us, I want you to be as recovered as you can be from that wound."

"I do feel a little better."

"Good. Get some more sleep. You too, Cas, if you can. I'm going to fill the tank down the street, get Dean a bottle of water, and we'll move."

"Let me know when I can assist with driving," Castiel said. Dean was already asleep.

.

Once the streetlights and businesses of civilization faded, the Impala's headlights were the only hint in the desert as to the road ahead. There were a few other vehicles out there – not many, and mostly semis. Twice a car fell in behind them; Sam gradually slowed to 55 miles an hour, and both times the other car passed them.

At about 3 in the morning, they pulled into a truck stop with a restaurant and a big convenience store in Ehrenberg, Arizona, just the other side of the state line. Dean pulled on a pair of non-bloody jeans in the Impala, then took the first aid kit to the men's room to change his dressing. Sam filled the tank, Castiel bought three cell phones in the store and had them activated. They loaded up on jerky, Snickers, and caffeine.

Dean noticed some chunks of concrete that were lying where one too many trucks had ground over the curb next to a driveway, and put them in the DNA bundle. Castiel drove back west a few miles to the Colorado River, and Sam threw the weighted bundle over the bridge railing.

Then they started east again. Castiel only had about one and a half hours of the pitch-black, lonely highway Sam had driven. Billboards began popping up, then traffic increased, and well before they passed the "Welcome to Phoenix" sign it was clear that they were in a major metropolitan area.

At about 6 a.m., they found a motel that had a room with two queen beds. Sam offered to get a separate room, but then agreed with Dean and Cas that all three of them should stay together until they were certain that scrying demons wouldn't descend on them. All that they took into the room were two bags of clothing, one bag of toiletries, the laptop, and the four guns.

They didn't even need to discuss arrangements; Dean and Castiel sat on one bed, Sam dropped down on the other. Castiel immediately began punching buttons on his phone.

"Do I want to know who you're calling?" Dean asked.

"My Terrestrial contact. Since our phones were taken, I don't know if he tried to respond to my call. They probably don't know about the battle at my house, or whether I'm alive." He lifted the phone to his ear and waited a moment. "Is this Lilith? If I've reached the wrong number, I'm sorry," and disconnected.

"Code," Dean said, pulling off his shoes.

"Yes."

"Oh, this is great." Dean was pulling off a sticky sock, revealing a foot smeared with blood that had run down his leg. "OK. I'm gonna wash off these feet."

"I'm going to take off this coat," Cas said. "It's quite warm in here."

Dean and Sam exchanged a look as Dean headed into the bathroom. Castiel had never complained about his coat being warm indoors before.

Moving his joints gingerly, Cas hung up both his coat and suit jacket, loosened his tie, sat on the bed and took off his shoes. Sam took off his shoes too, moved over to a little table near the door, and opened the laptop. "While we're waiting for your guy to call back, I'm going to read something to Dean, OK?"

Cas lay down, closing his eyes. "Certainly."

"What've you got?" tossing a pink-stained washcloth onto the floor, Dean limped out of the bathroom.

"I've been working on this," Sam said. "Tell me what you think."

He looked at the laptop screen. "Dear Sarah: I don't even know how to explain what happened six months ago. It was like something possessed me, and all I knew was, I had to get out. It wasn't you, it was everything, but mostly it was me.

"Dean tracked me down and he's been getting me different kinds of help. I gave him all kinds of crap, but maybe he was right. Anyway, I feel like I've come through on the other side of something, but I've come through different, and I'm just not the guy you knew before.

"A girl like you wouldn't have any trouble finding someone in six months, so I hope you've done that. If you haven't, you should. I won't be coming back to Austin, and even if I did, things would be awkward and weird. You deserve a guy who doesn't freak out and abandon you for half a year.

"Anyway, I'm passing through Phoenix, so I'm going to mail this here. Don't know where I'll end up, but don't worry, I'm not crazy anymore, just different.

"Best of luck in your future. I know you'll do great. Sam."

He looked up.

Dean, by his expression, wasn't impressed. "Well, it's good to give her an explanation, but I don't know – seems like you're usually more eloquent."

"My first draft was a lot more emotional. But I read over it and, you know, I don't want her thinking, 'The poor thing needs me, how can I help?' I want her to think, 'Glad to get closure, but wow, did I dodge a bullet.'"

"Oh." Dean nodded. "Well, yeah, I'd say you've hit it on the nose, then."

Sam shook his head. "I made it sound kind of like a blow-off, but she really is great, and I really hope she does find someone who deserves her. I can't help wondering – "

There was a pause, and Dean said, "If you'll find someone? Of course you will. You're still honest, a good – a kind guy, smarter than hell, pretty good-looking if you don't stand next to me. We'll settle down somewhere, you'll find a gal who likes all that and doesn't mind that you're a little more paranoid, a little tougher, maybe a little less focused on having the perfectly xeriscaped lawn."

Sam grinned. "You have to admit, I did some damn fine xeriscaping."

"No question."

Castiel's phone rang, and he sat up to take the call. "Speak."

After a moment, "Where I am isn't relevant, at the moment. Things happened after I phoned with the extraction code last night, and – "

He broke off. "You are?"

Then there was a long silence. His head jerked back and he sat up straighter.

Sam and Dean exchanged another look.

Then, "Well done. Congratulations. – No, I think it's best that I absent myself from Southern California for a while. Give everyone – " his voice broke a little – "my heartiest congratulations, though. You deserve this victory."

He disconnected, staring at the floor.

After a moment Dean asked, "What happened?"

Cas looked up. "After I phoned the Terrestrials with the extraction code last night, our Council decided that, since I had supplied them with a great deal of information about the Loyalists and couldn't supply them with any more, they would put an invasion plan into effect." He looked at Dean, his expression hard to read. "You will recall that, after we saw two cars pulling up to the security gate last night, I couldn't understand why staff members were returning before Hannah had told them to return."

Dean's lips parted. "It wasn't your staff members. It was the Terrestrials, invading."

"Yes."

"You're telling me that instead of ducking back inside and hiking that tunnel and committing a couple of felonies to get back to the Impala, we could've just said, 'Hi, guys! Can someone give us a lift to the Embassy Suites?'"

"Well. They would have needed to complete their takeover of the house first, and would have wanted us to assist. I'm not sure either of us would have been much help in a battle at that point."

"True."

"Of course they had both the home and gate security codes for my house. I had given them those codes for Mr. Vincent's house also. Some months ago I even managed to slip a Terrestrial into the house and added his thumbprint to the armory's unlocking procedures. I never did find out exactly where the main Loyalist armory was, but they decided to strike with the information they did have, and it paid off. Mr. Sanchez – " Castiel shrugged – "was our fourth head of weaponry in two months. He had neither experience nor much training in preventing or fighting such an attack. He and several guards were killed, and the armory is under the control of the Terrestrials.

"Mrs. Vincent will doubtless remain in Tahiti. Parcell's home has been surrounded, although – not surprisingly – he can't be found. Tomorrow a representative of the Terrestrials will submit an offer to Sucro's acting CEO for purchase of the controlling shares of Sucro."

"An offer he can't refuse."

"Exactly."

"Then – " Dean stood. "Oh my God, Cas, you've done it. Everything you wanted to do when you hired me. The Loyalist leadership is smashed, the Terrestrials are in control, and Loyalists in other parts of the country are gonna be saying, 'You know what, never mind,' and backing off on the whole raise-Lucifer-and-scorch-the-Earth plan. Oh my God. You did it."

"Only with your assistance. This would never have happened without you." He looked over. "And Sam."

His voice was flat, and Dean seemed to be trying to figure out why. He sat back down on the bed next to Castiel and said, "Of course there'll still be Loyalist soldiers out there, maybe even an insurgency. And Parcell's around somewhere."

"Parcell doesn't concern me. He'll find a way to ingratiate himself with the Terrestrial leadership. And as for us – " He looked back and forth between Sam and Dean. "We should still be on guard against a disgruntled Loyalist soldier tracking us, but realistically, I would say we're as safe as anyone who's taken part in a demon war could be."

Still in the same flat tone. Dean said, "But – "

"You recall the situation at the house when we left, when my comrades arrived."

And Dean understood. But he simply said, "Three of your staff dead. Parcell vanished. A guy searching for everyone upstairs. Hannah and a guard tied up and blindfolded in the hall outside the interrogation room."

"The invasion party searched and cleared the first and second floors. Ricardo was discovered and offered the chance to surrender. He chose to fight, and was killed. They then went downstairs and found Devin, still bound, very confused, still affected by the devil's trap bullet in his brain. They took him prisoner.

"I can only guess that Hannah, despite the devil's trap bullet in her leg, managed to roll as far as the inside of the interrogation room, found one of the angel blades on the floor, cut herself free, took off the blindfold, and dug the devil's trap bullet out of her leg with the blade." Dean's lips jerked back off of his teeth and he gave an empathetic grunt of pain. "About that time, I suppose, she heard the Terrestrials coming down the hall and hid behind the door. They came into the room, saw the bodies, and while that distracted them, she came out from behind the door. She killed two of them with the angel blade, before she was herself destroyed."

He lowered his head again. Dean and Sam simply listened.

"I don't understand. She wanted to kill you. As a Loyalist, she was my enemy. I shouldn't – and yet I can't help feeling – responsible for the destruction of someone who had been – "

He pressed his hands against his eyes briefly, continued. "Demons don't have friends, but she was a staunch ally, and that's very rare among us. If I could – "

He put his hands over his eyes again, groaned and bent double.

Dean was kneeling in front of him in a moment. "Cas? What's going on?"

"Pain. My eyes."

"Let me see." Dean was trying gently to pull Cas' hands from his face. "Are they doing that flickering thing?"

"I don't believe so." With some effort he opened his eyes and stared at Dean. "What do they look like?"

They looked like blue, human eyes. Brimming with tears.

Dean laid his hand along Cas' face. "How long has it been since you cried?"

"I can't remember." Cas blinked and tears rolled down his cheeks. He touched them and looked at his fingertips wonderingly.

Dean sat beside Castiel again, one hand on his back.

"Just so I understand," Sam's voice was quiet, "she was killed? Not exorcised?"

"Not exorcised. She was stabbed with an angel blade."

"So she's not being tortured in Hell."

"No."

After a moment Sam said, "I don't remember a lot about the exorcism, but I remember she got Andrealphus into that room with the devil's trap. He was so eager – I don't know if she had him thinking that he was gonna get rich or get lucky, but he followed her into that room like a lamb. I know she was an enemy of humans, especially you, Dean, but in a way, I owed her for that."

"She was an excellent aide," Castiel said quietly. "I could give her the most difficult assignments and know that they would be carried out."

"And I get the feeling that, if she'd known the big showdown was coming, she'd have wanted to go down fighting," Dean said.

"Yes." Castiel wiped away a couple of more tears.

"Cas? Do me a favor?" Dean asked quietly. "Do one of your magic jumps across the room to the door."

Castiel looked at him, puzzled.

Then he sat forward, his eyes wide, looking at Dean in astonishment. "I can't."

Sam gave a long low whistle.

"You made it," Dean said. "You made it, Cas."

"Happy human birthday, Cas," Sam said. "March twentieth. Wait, what?"

He double-checked the laptop screen, then turned to the window beside him, pulling back the curtain for a moment. "You're starting your human life at dawn. On the vernal equinox. Talk about rebirth – Hey. In Phoenix!" He gave an astonished laugh.

"We should drink to it," Dean said. "But we've got nothin' to drink."

"Water, what the heck," Sam said, standing.

There was a stack of Styrofoam cups beside a coffee maker. Sam ran some water into three of them and distributed them. "Here's to Cas."

They drank. "And you focus on the future from now on," Dean said. "Not what you did when you were human before, not what you did as a demon. From now on you focus on the good you're going to do this time around."

"I never thought," Castiel said quietly. "I never believed it would be possible. It wouldn't have been, without your insistence." He raised his cup. "To Dean and Sam."

They drank again. "Problem is," Dean said, "we're going to have to get you a new name. It's not just the turning human with the chance of demons after us, it's the cops. They'll probably just think you got killed in a mob war, but if a credit-card charge for something turns up for Castiel De Santis, even halfway across the country, they'll be ringin' the doorbell."

Castiel looked at him with a little amusement. "Dean, I've been undercover with particularly ruthless demons for years. I've always known the day might come when I'd have to abandon my former life quickly."

He got up and pulled the new wallet out of his suit jacket, handing it to Dean. "I have a bank account, credit cards, and a driver's license under a new name."

"Castiel Novak," Dean read.

"It's derived from a Serbian word meaning 'new,' so it seemed appropriate."

"You think you should keep the same first name?" Sam asked. "It's unusual."

"True. It's a risk, but a small one. And the name may have been given to me by a demon, but I feel I've made it my own."

He sat back down beside Dean. "Would you mind moving over? I'm going to lie down."

"Still hurting?" Dean asked, standing.

Cas lay down, closing his eyes. "Yes, although not quite as much. Mainly I'm exhausted. I haven't felt so exhausted in – I don't know how long."

Sam nodded. "I think we should take the rest of the day to sleep and heal up. One of us should be on guard duty, in shifts. Just to be on the safe side. Tomorrow morning, if you guys feel like it, we'll get moving again after I mail my letter to Sarah."

"And after I pack up the stuff I stole from Jeff and mail it back to him," Dean said. "And we need to get Cas some things. He literally left town with just the clothes on his back."

"Good. Then tomorrow afternoon, we'll start for Rapid City."

Dean rolled his eyes. "Rapid City again."

"As long as we're traveling around, we may as well see Mount Rushmore."

Cas' eyes popped open. "I want to see Mount Rushmore too."

Dean burst out laughing. "OK, kiddies, I'll take you to Mount Rushmore. If you're good boys, I'll buy you T-shirts."

Castiel began making sounds, choked snorts with the intermittent bray of a tiny donkey. Dean flinched, then said, "First time you've laughed in a while too, huh?"

Castiel nodded, calming down. "Well," Dean said, "you'll get better at it." He patted Cas' arm, while shooting a wide-eyed I-hope-to-God look at Sam.

Then he said, "After Rapid City, I want to go across the state and visit Bobby in Sioux Falls. I want to give him half of our angel-blade bullets, if it's OK with you guys. He needs them, and I'm hoping we won't."

"And then?" Sam said. Cas had apparently drifted off to sleep.

"After that my ill-gotten gains are going to be running low. We'll have to settle down somewhere and get jobs."

"Actually sounds damn good," Sam said, returning to the table and stretching his legs out under it.

"It does, doesn't it." Dean yawned.

"Get some sleep."

"Are you sure you want the first watch? You did a lot of driving last night."

"Yeah, but I wasn't fighting or bleeding or turning human. I'll be fine."

Dean got one of the guns and put it on the table near Sam's hand. "You wake me up in four hours sharp."

"Got it."

Burying another gun under his pillow, Dean stretched out next to Castiel and closed his eyes.

After a moment, he reached over and rested his hand on Cas' chest. Cas made a little sound – of pleasure, not pain – and covered Dean's hand with his own, apparently in his sleep.

Sam smiled, looking over at them. He pulled back the curtain for a moment again, surveyed the dawn-lit parking lot carefully.

Then he let the curtain drop back. He put his earphones on, cocking them so that one ear was uncovered, and started working the laptop's keyboard. As he began plotting their route to Rapid City, he listened to a Zayde Wolf song.

.

.

THE END


End file.
